The Harvard-Kennedy School announced this week the launch of a new program focused on Israel that its organizers say will bring a broader, policy-oriented and pluralistic approach to the study of the country and its role in the Middle East, as universities continue to grapple with intense debate over Israel and the war in Gaza.

The Israel Program, housed within the school’s Middle East Initiative, will examine issues including Israeli politics and society, U.S.-Israel relations, Jewish-Arab relations and Israel’s place in the region. Barak Sella, a senior research fellow at the Middle East Initiative who is spearheading the program under the guidance of Prof. Tarek Masoud, told Jewish Insider that the program addresses an “acute need” for serious research on the complexities of the Middle East, rather than being created primarily as a response to campus polarization following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“You can’t take this program out of the context of the time that we are in,” said Sella. “But I would describe it as something that would be needed anyways.”

Sella, who was a student at Harvard at the time of the attacks, said he witnessed a distinct gap in learning opportunities for peers seeking comprehensive perspectives on the region.

“While there was a lot of discussion about Israel, there was a gap in serious research programs to provide students with in-depth perspectives,” he said. “This program is different because Israel, like many other countries, is a country in the Middle East and if you actually want to do research that can make a difference and support a better future for the region, I think it’s important it be done not only in the local context of Israel but also in the global context.” 

The program emphasizes “rigorous, open inquiry and civil, constructive debate.” However, because discussions about Israel on U.S. campuses are so polarized, Sella acknowledged it had been a challenge to make everyone feel comfortable sharing their views.

Addressing that is the “whole basis of the Israel program being housed at the Middle East Initiative,” he said, noting that the initiative already hosts an array of programs including one on Kuwait and research projects on Egypt and Tunisia. “We’re housed in an initiative where the basic idea is that all of the countries in the Middle East have a place,” he said. “The only thing we have to agree on is that we’re sitting at the same table once a week. We have a seminar for all our research fellows and learn from what everyone is researching.” 

The program, which is funded by the Middle East Initiative, will host research fellows and events focusing on Israeli and Palestinian Authority elections (the latter last held presidential elections in 2005), alongside a study group examining the future of U.S.-Israel relations. The course “Arguing Israel Palestine” might include a field study visiting Israel and the West Bank in the future, Sella said, though the trip did not run during last year’s pilot course due to the Iran war. Additionally, the Shared Society Lab — led by Dana Schleifer, a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and former chief innovation officer for the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality — plans to investigate Jewish-Arab cooperation within Israel, with an emphasis on strengthening Arab municipalities. 

The lab “is based on the idea that one of the best ways to increase [partnership] between Arabs and Jews in Israel is through local municipalities,” said Sella. “We interviewed dozens of people from Arab municipalities and identified their weak points and strengths. We’re planning to do more research and hopefully leadership initiatives with leaders of the Arab municipalities. We want to use the resources we have here to make sure the Arab municipalities in Israel are getting the best tools they can to provide a better life for their citizens.” 

Sella credits his time at Harvard for prompting him to find new ways to study the Jewish state. One of his most formative experiences happened far from the Cambridge campus, during a student delegation to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“I met a lot of senior people and there were conversations about the economy and the region, but also very difficult conversations about Israel,” he recalled. “They were always conversations about finding a solution and practical approaches. When I was on that program with Harvard, I realized that I want more students to be able to experience that. When we’re talking about a place like Israel, we need to take out the slogans and base conversations on what universities should be based on — rational thinking and pursuit of truth.”  

Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that the U.S. must prioritize its own needs and “cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel,” likening the dynamic to that of NATO during a virtual appearance at the All-In Summit.

Vance made the comments in conversation with “All-In Podcast” co-host Jason Calacanis, saying there are “obviously a lot of important relationships, a lot of important partnerships in NATO, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to completely make our European foreign policy subservient to NATO in the same way that we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the state of Israel.” 

“We’re going to work with people when we work with them,” Vance continued. “We’re going to disagree when we disagree, and we’re going to pursue America’s interests. That’s the only way to have a rational foreign policy.”

The vice president also addressed a question about concerns on the right over the closeness of the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

“Obviously Israel has been an important partner when it comes to military technology, when it comes to intelligence sharing, but also sometimes the United States doesn’t always agree with Israel,” Vance said to Calacanis. “And I think that, more than frankly any president in the last 40 years, he has shown a willingness to actually part ways with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu when he feels like the interests of the American people are different from the interests of the government of Israel.”

Vance added, “I find it a little ironic, Jason, that you have Democrats criticizing Donald Trump for his relationship with Bibi when Donald Trump is the one president of the last 40 years who’s been willing to say, ‘You know what? Yeah, Bibi’s a good partner, but also Bibi and I have a different opinion on this, or Bibi’s wrong about this, or maybe Bibi’s right about this from the perspective of Israel, but the American people need us to go in a different direction.’”

The vice president responded to a question about the dynamic between himself and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying that the “funniest media narrative is that somehow Marco and I are like, hyper competitive, and we sit around like thinking about, you know, how we’re going to run for president against each other in 2028.” 

Vance noted that the two were scheduled to speak immediately after his virtual appearance at the conference. “He’s a great human being. He’s doing a great job too,” Vance said of Rubio.

Growing up in Bahrain, Fatema Al Harbi absorbed years of anti-Israel propaganda, but she says the mood in her home country has since shifted markedly, with ordinary citizens no longer seeing Israel as the Middle East’s foremost threat — a distinction they now assign to Iran. 

Now serving as Gulf affairs director for Sharaka, an Israel-based organization that aims to develop bonds between young Israeli and Gulf leaders, Al Harbi’s journey from Israel critic to advocate is central to her pitch as she joins a four-day cross-country campus speaking tour that kicked off on Monday. 

The tour, which also features Jonathan Elkhoury — a Lebanese-born Christian and LGBTQ+ activist whose family fled Hezbollah rule for Israel — and Israeli-American activist Noa Tishby, is being produced by Tishby’s nonprofit, Eighteen. The interfaith trio is scheduled to address students at University of Colorado Boulder, Emory University, the University of Texas and Florida International University. 

Al Harbi spoke with Jewish Insider on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, about her experience as a Bahraini Muslim woman publicly supporting Israel, and how the regional landscape has shifted since the historic signing. 

Jewish Insider: Why did you decide to do this tour, and did you have any reservations? What do you see as your specific role in the tour’s lineup — what can you speak to that Jonathan and Noa can’t? What do you think is most important that American students understand?

Fatema Al Harbi: I didn’t have any [doubts] about joining. It’s the opposite, I was really excited to be part of this. In the end, we are [all] fighting against loud, extremist voices so we have to come together. I have to speak for my region. So many voices are taking over our region — impacting our country in a bad way. It’s important to have a platform to speak up and show the reality myself, as a Muslim, as an Arab, about what’s going on in the region. This is important to share, especially across campuses. 

I’m going to speak about my story: growing up and how I was impacted by propaganda against Israel and Jews. Most Arab countries 20 years ago were affected by Islamism and propaganda from Al Jazeera. Today, nobody trusts [Al Jazeera] in Bahrain, and also it’s banned. 

I had so much curiosity about Israel. Seeing the country changed my mind [about the views I grew up learning]. 

[Today] so many people are aligning with political Islamism and it’s affecting America but also affecting us back home. 

JI: The tour stop at Emory lands on the Accords anniversary — how do things look different now than the signing day in 2020? 

FAH: Things are so different. Six years ago, the Abraham Accords weren’t very popular at home. Now [support] grew. I’m not saying there’s 100% approval, but it grew. Everyone wants our country to choose peace over anything else. 

JI: How would you characterize the dynamics within the Gulf Cooperation Council right now on the question of normalization with Israel — is there a shared view among the Gulf states, or are you seeing divergence?

FAH: Of course there are different opinions. There are a lot of opinions towards normalization but in the end, the GCC always comes together. There is always a meeting point. 

JI: Saudi Arabia remains the biggest question mark in the region. Do you think it is moving toward eventual normalization, or has it been pushed to a more hard-line stance post-Oct. 7? 

FAH: It’s a tricky question. I think it’s a matter of when, not if. Saudi Arabia was coming closer to normalization but unfortunately after Oct. 7, it was pushed back and you could feel it. Things are changing now, for example, the war we are experiencing. Saudi Arabia is getting attacked from Iran and also from the Houthis. The attacks could change a lot in the region, not just for Saudi Arabia but for all GCC countries. I think one of those things will be normalization with Israel. 

I think we’ll have to wait and see what will happen in the next few months, or even years. 

JI: Bahrain was hit by Iranian missiles amid the recent escalation. Has that changed how ordinary Bahrainis view the relationship with Israel? 

FAH: [In the past] many people came to me after speaking about the Abraham Accords and normalization with Israel and [voiced] a lot of opposition. They said the enemy of the Middle East was Israel. Now after seeing the war — the moment Iran had the chance to attack us in Bahrain, they did — so many people are coming to me saying they realize the enemy of the Middle East is actually not Israel, it’s Iran. Our country, our economy, everything has been affected [by Iran]. 

JI: What does day-to-day life look like for you as a Bahraini woman who’s publicly aligned with Israel? Has your outspokenness changed how you’re received in your community? What about across the Gulf more broadly?

FAH: Thankfully, I live in a very safe country with strong laws that do not tolerate hate. [Even for] online attacks, I could take them to court or to the police. So the good thing is that not a lot has changed for me in Bahrain. I’ve lived a normal life since the Abraham Accords and until now. The only thing that changed is how people perceive the Abraham Accords, which is a recent change because of the war.    

JI: Do you think your neighbors truly share your views on Israel, or are they afraid to speak up because of legal implications?

FAH: I think it is mostly because of the laws. But most Bahrainis are very kind-hearted. They don’t have loud violence or hatred. If someone wants to show their hatred, they will find a well-mannered way to do it. We’re an island; people are more chill than in other countries. 

President Donald Trump on Monday informed the Senate that he plans to nominate Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, moving toward filling one of the numerous Middle East ambassadorship posts that have sat vacant since the start of his second administration.

Hunt, a former Army officer and Apache helicopter pilot, served two deployments in Saudi Arabia as a military diplomatic liaison. He is serving his second term in the House, but lost a primary bid for Texas’ Senate seat earlier this year.

“It is the honor of a lifetime to accept President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Hunt said in a statement on X. “Having served in the region both in combat as an Army officer and for two years as a diplomatic liaison in the Kingdom, I understand the strategic importance of the partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and the profound responsibility of this position.”

Hunt said in 2022 during a virtual event with AIPAC that Israel is the “one true ally” of the United States in the Middle East, while noting that many of 9/11 hijackers, as well as Osama Bin Laden himself, were from Saudi Arabia.

“I learned a lot about what our interests need to be and who we need to be in the business of supporting for the future, because that’s our one true ally in the region,” Hunt said at the event.

Addressing the then-fledgling Abraham Accords, Hunt was supportive but cautious. “Some of these countries are bad actors. They’re rogue nations, some of them,” he continued. “Just because we have something set up like the Abraham Accords — which I think is good for the entire world, especially for the region — we cannot let our guard down.”

He recently joined a letter calling for a Department of Justice investigation into efforts by an official in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to meet with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

Hunt has been a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations.

But he was one of just 21 House members who voted last year against a resolution expressing support for the State Department’s global guidelines on combating antisemitism. Antisemitism envoy Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun has been working to tackle antisemitism in Saudi Arabia, including stripping antisemitic content from the country’s school curricula.

During the AIPAC event, Hunt also described himself as the “energy congressman of the world,” given that he represents the offices of many major energy companies in Houston, making it part of his job to defend the energy industry — also a major industry for Saudi Arabia.

It will be logistically difficult for the Senate to consider Hunt’s nomination before the midterm elections, and with a slew of previous nominees still under consideration, it’s unclear whether the Senate will be able to process Hunt’s nomination before the end of the year. Should Democrats retake the upper chamber, Hunt’s confirmation would be more difficult.

The nomination comes at a highly sensitive time in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, as the two countries move toward a nuclear deal that would reportedly allow for nuclear enrichment inside Saudi Arabia, which is set to be reviewed by Congress in the coming months. 

Saudi Arabia is also at a major crisis point with the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen as hostilities have flared after several years of quiet. The Houthis this weekend seized critical port cities and islands along the coastline of the Red Sea and launched missiles from Iraq that disabled the pipeline that Saudi Arabia had been using to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump said he doesn’t plan to intervene, despite reported Saudi pleas.

The kingdom has also recently been recalibrating its regional position, with Saudi Arabia moving away from normalization with Israel, experiencing tensions with its regional rival the United Arab Emirates, forming new ties with Turkey and Pakistan and again allowing the promotion of Islamist extremism.

A year and a half after CNN announced its plans to launch a network hub in Qatar, the media company is deepening its ties to the Gulf state with a Middle East speaker series in the capital of Doha that is slated for late October.

CNN said this week it was kicking off its inaugural “Global Perspectives” event in Doha on Oct. 29 with a newly unveiled lineup featuring government officials, business leaders and cultural figures, among others.

The upcoming forum will be hosted in partnership with Media City Qatar, where CNN inked a deal last year to open a new broadcasting studio as part of an ongoing effort to build the network’s presence in the Middle East. 

That agreement — which entailed an annual fee of several million dollars that Qatar would pay to CNN, according to sources — raised some concerns among critics who had questioned if it would jeopardize the network’s ability to produce objective journalism on the Gulf state. 

CNN is among several media companies, including The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, that have expanded their business relationships with Qatar — even as the emirate has faced scrutiny for its lack of press freedoms, record of human rights abuses and sponsorship of Hamas. 

Late last year, CNN also served as a co-sponsor of Qatar’s Doha Forum, whose panels elevated several prominent figures who have embraced hostile views on Israel or espoused antisemic tropes — including far-right media commentator Tucker Carlson; Trita Parsi, the founder of a pro-Iran lobbying group; and Nika Soon-Shiong, the publisher of Drop Site News and the daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.

In a statement, Ellana Lee, CNN’s global head of productions, said next month’s series will explore “the ways in which power, influence, technology, business and culture intersect in today’s constantly shifting world,” while “looking to the future through the prism of this unique and increasingly important region.”

The tentative early roster for the Doha conference features Tareq Amin, CEO of Humain, a Saudi AI company; Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv; and Mohammed Saif Al-Sowaidi, the CEO of the Qatar Investment Authority, the state’s sovereign wealth fund — which is among several Gulf investors that are backing the pending merger of David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance and CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Multiple CNN anchors and correspondents — including Wolf Blitzer, Christiane Amanpour and Becky Anderson — will lead the discussions in Doha, which will later be highlighted on a dedicated show, according to an announcement.

Anderson, an international anchor for CNN based in Abu Dhabi, on Monday interviewed Majed Al Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, where he argued that “the nucleus” of tensions with Iran stem from “what happened in Gaza” during Israel’s war against Hamas.

Speaking at a conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday, Al Ansari gave Anderson a shoutout while discussing efforts to advance Qatar’s narrative around the globe. “I look in front of me now and I see a lot of the media people that represent the best and the brightest,” the Qatari advisor said from the stage of the Hili Forum, “including Becky from CNN and others.”

“But is our narrative getting through?” he asked, adding that “we need to speak with one voice in the Gulf.”

Middle East experts urged members of Congress on Tuesday to empower the Yemeni government and resume diplomatic efforts to constrain the Houthis in Yemen, warning that the Trump administration’s bombing campaign against the Houthis and the subsequent ceasefire have failed to deter the group from targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee Middle East subcommittee hearing on the threats posed by the Houthis to U.S. interests in the Red Sea, Nadwa Al-Dawsari, an associate fellow at the Middle East Institute, and Allison Minor, the director of the Project for Middle East Integration at the Atlantic Council, testified that the Trump administration’s approach to containing the Iran-backed terror group had not sufficiently weakened or deterred it.

“The United States does not have an ambassador appointed to Yemen, to Saudi Arabia or to the UAE, the countries that are most important to resolving the conflict,” Minor said. “We have career diplomats in place as chargé d’affaires, but unfortunately, it’s not sufficient.”

Asked who is filling that void by Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), Minor replied: “You have caretaker career diplomatic staff in place. I think there are a handful of envoys this administration has appointed for a series of global conflicts. I don’t think they have the bandwidth currently for Yemen.”

Lawmakers from both parties expressed concern over the negative impact on the economy caused by the Houthis’ repeated disruptions to commercial shipping in the Red Sea, with several connecting the campaign with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. (Most recently, the Houthis have been attacking targets in Saudi Arabia, including ships, airports and oil facilities.)

“[The Houthis] have targeted American forces, attacked our partners and threatened commercial vessels transiting one of the world’s most important waterways,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who chairs the subcommittee, said. 

“Iran transformed a local armed movement into a terrorist organization capable of threatening Americans and disrupting international commerce. … This becomes even more dangerous in Yemen when the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz are involved. Iran and its Houthi proxies have now simultaneously put pressure on two of the world’s most important maritime checkpoints.” 

Pressed on what Congress could do to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Minor warned that, “until we have a durable resolution to this threat, we will continue to see a disruption to commerce that has immediate impacts on global energy markets and long-term consequences for freedom of navigation globally.”

Minor also agreed with Keating’s suggestion that “the closure and the limitation on the Strait [of Hormuz] has given the Houthis even more leverage than before.”

Minor and Al-Dawsari concurred that the Trump administration has failed to develop a durable Yemen policy or provide enough support to the Yemeni government to counter Houthi influence and territorial control. 

Both witnesses criticized the ongoing ceasefire between the U.S. and the Houthis as strategically unproductive, pointing to the terrorist group’s increased recruiting numbers and continued attacks on commercial shipping. The two urged the Trump administration to not treat the ceasefire as a long-term strategy.

Al-Dawsari and Minor also rejected the notion that prior U.S. military operations had significantly diminished the Houthis’ ability or willingness to fight.

“U.S. military pressure has imposed real costs on the Houthis, but airstrikes alone will not eliminate the threat,” Al-Dawsari said. “The Houthis have not been degraded.”

“Air strikes have disrupted Houthi operations and … undermined some of their capabilities, but the Houthis have proven that they are able to regenerate some of these capabilities,” she continued. “The Houthis have not engaged in peace negotiations in good faith. They used that time to rebuild their capabilities, recruit more fighters and prepare for the next war.”

Minor argued that, “U.S. airstrikes and Israeli strikes all failed to eliminate Houthi capabilities or alter their strategy. … Each time the Houthis have come under attack from U.S. or Israeli strikes, they have used this to fuel their recruitment.”

Neither witness supported the idea of a U.S. military operation targeting the Houthis involving 

ground troops, and both agreed that the Trump administration should fill the vacant U.S. special envoy for Yemen post and surge humanitarian assistance.

But Al-Dawsari and Minor diverged on how to achieve a lasting solution that eliminates the group’s fighting capacity and ensures the Yemeni government can maintain control of the country. 

Minor argued that the Trump administration needs to address the lack of a broader American diplomatic apparatus in the region while pursuing a “viable negotiated settlement that can contain Houthi threats while addressing the governance issues that have been fueling this Houthi threat for over a decade.” While Minor did not rule out the viability of military force completely, she urged the U.S. to stop “vacillating between costly U.S. military intervention and disengagement.”

Al-Dawsari, meanwhile, encouraged the Trump administration to partner with Saudi Arabia on a broader effort to provide intelligence and military training, as well as any other assistance, “to support the Yemeni government militarily, politically and economically.” She also urged lawmakers to continue supporting the Houthis’ Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation.

“The most important source of leverage is territory,” Al-Dawsari said. “The United States needs to do the one thing that it hasn’t done yet: support the Yemeni government to take territory from the Houthis.”

“This is not the United States’ war, and it shouldn’t be,” she argued. “We need to provide [the government] with the necessary military and economic and political support in order to be able to take on the Houthis on their own long-term. That’s the only way to do it. There is no other substitute.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) on Sunday praised the new mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan as an accomplishment by President Donald Trump.

“The mutual defense pact of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan is another achievement of [Trump] promoting stability, peace, and prosperity in the Middle East,” Wilson, a vocal supporter of Israel who has also been strongly supportive of Turkey, said in a post on X. “With our prosperous Gulf allies, a liberated Syria, and Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, it is clear the murderous regime in Iran is isolated and the people of Iran can regain a new government worthy of Iran’s rich history.”

Wilson has been among the most prominent supporters on Capitol Hill of the new Syrian government, which is tied closely to Turkey’s own government.

The pact has been seen by many in pro-Israel circles as a sign that some of the U.S.’ Gulf allies are attempting to hedge against the U.S. and Israel, creating an alternative to the Abraham Accords and empowering those hostile to Israel.

There also has been no public reporting about Trump or the U.S. having been involved with the deal.

Multiple U.S. analysts told Jewish Insider last week that the agreement should be cause for concern for both the U.S. and Israel, and could portend a more aggressive posture against Israel by Ankara and its ally in Damascus.

A coalition of Sunni regional powers signed a historic joint defense pact on Friday, but national security experts expressed deep unease over the arrangement, arguing that it reflects U.S. shortcomings in the Middle East while raising serious questions about its practical military feasibility.

The agreement, dubbed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, was signed in the Saudi holy city of Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. 

Under the pact, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan agreed to treat an armed attack on one signatory as an attack on all. The move solidifies security and defense cooperation between the three powers amid a period of heightened regional turmoil and uncertainty stemming from the war in Iran.

As a result of the ongoing conflict with Iran, Saudi Arabia has seen its critical infrastructure and oil facilities targeted by strikes, which analysts say has prompted Riyadh to diversify its strategic and security partnerships. The trilateral agreement follows a bilateral mutual defense pact signed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia last September.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained that the military alliance formed in response to an “uncertain security situation” across the wider region.

“For Turkey, it is an assertion of its centrality to security arrangements in the region. For Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it is a reflection of weakness and uncertainty, as both feel threatened (by Iran and India respectively),” Fitton-Brown said. “Although the agreement is not primarily directed against Israel or the United States, both should be concerned about it.”

Fitton-Brown emphasized that the pact poses strategic complications for both Jerusalem and Washington, while raising alarms for regional actors.

“For Israel, it is further confirmation of Turkish ambitions, which are explicitly directed against Israeli interests,” Fitton-Brown said. “For the U.S., it is questioning how reliable or permanent it is viewed as a player in the region. Stirring up a hornet’s nest in the Gulf and then appearing unsure about an end game, or even clear red lines, has left American allies uncertain about the future and willing to hedge their bets.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, similarly labeled the agreement as problematic, noting that it reflects U.S. diplomatic shortcomings rather than an effective counterweight to Tehran.

“This alignment is problematic to the extent it is about Washington and its regional relationships, not Tehran,” Ruhe said. “These three countries have almost zero shared ability or interest to meaningfully contain Iran. The Trump administration certainly should have done better coalition-building before the Iran war.”

Ruhe added that for Turkey, the pact serves to “support Ankara’s longstanding pretensions to be a major player and arms exporter in the Middle East and beyond, independent of the United States and NATO.”

Fitton-Brown also highlighted how regional shifts in Syria intersect with the new alliance. 

“There is also a Syrian dimension: President Sharaa now leads a Sunni Islamist government in Damascus, where Turkey is the most influential foreign power and Saudi Arabia is a key investor and stabilizing influence,” Fitton-Brown said. “Israel will worry that this consolidates Turkish influence in Syria and will ultimately turn Sharaa’s Syria against Israel.”

Fitton-Brown noted that the emerging alliance signals a broader realignment of regional power dynamics following recent geopolitical shifts.

“On one hand, the new agreement looks like a Sunni axis that is replacing the Iran-led Axis of Resistance, following the weakening of the Islamic Republic, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria,” he explained. “On the other hand, Iran remains threatening to the Gulf States, especially, and the Saudis are probably comforted by the appearance of Sunni solidarity.”

Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, similarly assessed that the pact acts as a strategic signal to Tehran.

“The alliance is reminding Iran that it isn’t the only big power in the region,” Henderson said, adding that the dynamic is less about sectarian identity than geopolitical posturing. “[The alliance is] not particularly a Sunni-Shia thing. Pakistan is mainly Sunni, but any tensions are mainly Iran and Saudi playing games.”

Despite the high-profile announcement, Fitton-Brown expressed skepticism over the operational capabilities of the agreement, noting that paper commitments rarely translate to direct military intervention across disparate conflicts.

“In practice, it is inconceivable that Turkey or Saudi Arabia would get involved in a conflict with India if the latter came to blows with Pakistan again, as is more or less inevitable on a regular basis,” Fitton-Brown said. “The extension of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent to cover Saudi against Iran or Turkey in any circumstances looks equally implausible. But defense industrial collaboration may flesh out the substance of the alliance over time.”

Analysts warn that the emerging bloc could complicate future diplomatic breakthroughs in the region, particularly regarding U.S. efforts to broker Saudi-Israeli normalization. Ruhe noted that as a result of the new axis, Riyadh is significantly raising its leverage against Washington. 

“With this new axis, Riyadh also is telling Washington that the price for normalization will be incredibly high, greater even than the incredibly one-sided deal for U.S.-aided nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil,” Ruhe said. “As part of the ultimate goal of normalization, the Trump administration should pursue a more comprehensive and balanced partnership with Saudi Arabia: Riyadh gets a truly safeguarded nuclear program and U.S. defense guarantees, but only in exchange for the kingdom formally aligning with Washington and concretely doing more for collective defense.”

To counter the fallout from the alliance, Ruhe argued that the U.S. must recalibrate its regional policy and tighten its focus on existing partnerships.

“The United States should focus more immediately on deepening, not broadening, the Abraham Accords, by redoubling security cooperation with Israel and the UAE,” Ruhe said. “Trump also needs to stop fawning over Erdogan and feeding his ambitions to reap all the benefits of being a U.S. partner without assuming any corresponding responsibilities.”

ASPEN, Colo. — Robert Greenway, who led the Middle East and North Africa portfolio on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first administration, predicted to Jewish Insider in an interview last month that the Iranian regime would not “make it” to the end of Trump’s time in office.

Greenway’s comments came amid the resumption of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran in late July, following the collapse of the countries’ memorandum of understanding, prior to the latest pause in U.S. strikes.

“We’ve really put ourselves in a position where we’ve got massive leverage. Their economy is virtually non-existent. I think it’s dead. We’re just waiting for the funeral, I think their political leadership is in turmoil,” Greenway said in an interview on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum. “The military has been decimated, and very little capacity remains to threaten the United States and our interests. That’s the reality of it. Despite claims to the contrary — those are not serious claims. They’re not supported by the facts.”

Greenway said that the administration’s military success had allowed it to “indulge a potential diplomatic path” that it knew was “unlikely” to actually succeed.

After the war, Greenway said that the U.S.’ regional approach should include working to contain Iran, building on the burgeoning regional security architecture developed with other Middle East allies and expanding the Abraham Accords. He was bullish about the chances for expanded normalization in spite of the apparent obstacles created by the wars in Gaza and Iran.

“The destruction [and] the attrition [in] Iran lowers the price of admission” for the Abraham Accords, Greenway said. “The math equation works here because we’ve reduced the Iranian threat. So there isn’t a massive requirement for us to provide enormous capabilities” to Arab states as a price for normalization.

Greenway was involved in negotiating the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first administration and continued to work to promote normalization after leaving the administration, first as the executive director of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute and later as the director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation.

“Getting Saudi Arabia and the other states integrated into the region with Israel and expanding the accords is different now than it was a year or four years ago,” Greenway continued. “But it is still, I think, practical, necessary and achievable.”

He was dismissive of Saudi statements that the kingdom intends to condition normalization on a path to a two-state solution, arguing that such statements are a “public rhetorical mechanism that serves a purpose” but won’t be enforced in practice.

Greenway was a member of the Heritage Foundation when the group issued a report last year — which was controversial at the time — calling for the gradual phasing out of U.S. military aid to Israel. In the months since, the concept has been endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some American supporters of Israel, and most observers expect that a drawdown of direct financial support will be a component of the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding.

He said that phasing out U.S. aid would insulate Israel from American attempts to exert leverage over Jerusalem, such as that undertaken by the Biden administration. He said that the threat of growing Democratic shifts against Israel are a key reason for the U.S. to work to ensure that Israel no longer needs aid.

“Let’s improve Israel’s economy, let’s improve the trade that exists between our two countries, the security cooperation that exists between our two countries and our industries, and let’s improve Israel’s relationship to its neighbors, and if we can, reduce the threat,” Greenway said of the path to phasing out aid.

But he also said that aid should only be phased out “if Israel was in a financial position to do it, and its security relative to its neighbors was increased.”

He argued that Israel “doesn’t want” the U.S. involved in its relations with the Palestinians. Instead, he said the U.S. can best help Israel through economic ties and working to broker relationships with its neighbors, things Israel “can’t do … for itself.”

Greenway — as a Trump ally — was something of an outlier at the Aspen conference, which has generally attracted more traditional internationalist voices on the left and right. He said he wanted to urge the attendees to judge Trump and his administration by their results, rather than by rhetoric.

He pointed to the administration’s policy on Russia as one example. He argued that, while Trump has been accused of “coddling” Russia, he’s managed to severely damage Russia’s economy as well as press European countries to curtail their energy purchases that had been fueling Russia’s war machine.

“That actually, concrete, matters, right? And again, if you’re using a different lens and arbiter to look at how policies actually succeed or prevail or not, you can get to dangerous places,” Greenway said.

Greenway was also involved in crafting the Project Esther antisemitism strategy at the Heritage Foundation. Asked about how to avoid the encroachment of antisemitism on the right, Greenway pointed back to that strategy, and argued that Republicans have been more successful in fighting antisemitism in their party than Democrats.

“Republicans aren’t electing high officials that hold antisemitic principles and anti-Israel positions,” Greenway said. “I can’t say the same for the Democratic Party. … You cannot, as a Republican, stand up and make antisemitic comments and expect to survive, much less win an election or even become a candidate representing the party. It just isn’t going to happen.”

But he also said that there is a “very real struggle” to resist those trends and the problem of growing youth antisemitism crosses party lines, a phenomenon he blamed on conservatives “losing control of curricula and institutions and education.”

He said conservatives should work to reform educational systems and have zero tolerance for antisemitism.

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.

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.

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.”

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack on Friday promoted a new regional trade and security alignment in the Middle East centered around Iraq, Turkey and neighboring Arab states, appearing to sideline a similar regional project including Israel.

Speaking at the U.S.-Iraq Business Summit, Barrack told attendees that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who visited with President Donald Trump at the White House this week, is considering a transformative agreement “that will make the Strait of Hormuz” — which has been effectively shut down due to the Iran war and continued hostilities — an “afterthought in two years” by shifting trade that usually passes through the waterway to overland routes.

“What this young leader [al-Zaidi] has in mind — aligned with Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt — is a program that will make the Strait of Hormuz an afterthought in two years,” Barrack said. “We’re going from just-in-time delivery on boats through these minor straits to just-in-case delivery going the other way.”

The proposal appears to serve as an alternative framework to the stalled India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which has faced roadblocks following regional turmoil and the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. While the original IMEC agreement included Israel as a vital transit point connecting India to Europe via the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the newly envisioned corridor relies instead on a coalition featuring Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The State Department also released a statement on Friday welcoming the announcement of cooperation between Iraq and Syria on the “rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Iraq-Syria crude oil pipeline as a priority infrastructure project of bilateral and regional strategic significance.”

“We feel the chaos on one side, but actually, what’s happened is a brilliant realignment of security and strategic alliances in the region,” Barrack said in his remarks, with “Iraq being at the forefront of a new strategic security alliance.”

Barrack praised Trump for recognizing the necessity of working with localized “strong leaders” rather than enforcing Western-style regime change, which he admitted has historically failed.

“The connectivity of what can happen is mind-boggling,” he continued. “So, if we now take from Turkey, Azerbaijan, to Turkmenistan through Central Asia, the amount of gas that can be sent the other way towards Europe through commerce, we’re starting to find a way to create a different fabric.”

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.”

ASPEN, Colo. — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) argued on a panel at the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday 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.

The U.S. has been “effectively eliminated as a security guarantor for our allies” because of what he described as a failed military campaign against Iran, Murphy argued.

“You can make an argument that that could be a long-term silver lining, that the Gulf states will have to sit down and negotiate, at the beginning, the question over the Strait of Hormuz and maybe another set of factors, and in those negotiations, that might be the new reality in the Middle East,” he said.

“Maybe in that conversation with the U.S. not in the lead, but as a partner, there is a solution to the ultimate Iranian control of the strait, but it’s admittedly very hard to answer that question right now,” Murphy continued.

He said that the current state of play suggests that an emboldened, enriched Iran with control of the Strait of Hormuz “seems to be the best-case endgame” and “that is why our allies and friends in the region are questioning whether there is any way the United States can ever secure them.”

Some allies, he acknowledged, want to see the U.S. “finish the job” in Iran, but argued that that’s an unclear and undefined goal that in some cases might involve committing U.S. ground forces.

Asked by moderator Jim Scuitto, a CNN correspondent, how a future Democratic president would approach the situation assuming the current status quo persists through 2028, Murphy said that is “kind of an impossible question,” adding that the U.S. would have to engage with its partners and Iran to try to secure freedom of transit in the Strait of Hormuz. Murphy himself is viewed as a potential presidential candidate.

He said that resolving the current standoff would likely require lifting sanctions and pressuring Israel to permanently end its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Asked about the possibility of expanded U.S. strikes on Iranian oil infrastructure, as suggested earlier in the forum by former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Murphy said that would only lead Iran to escalate further by ordering the Houthis to close the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

Iran, in Murphy’s framing, had “taken our best shot and survived” and realized it can use the Strait of Hormuz to increase its leverage at the negotiating table. He said that the current situation essentially removes any leverage the U.S. had in nuclear talks — having surrendered sanctions relief for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and showing that the U.S. military threat is not sufficient to bring down the regime.

As a result, he said that the U.S. would likely not be able to get a better deal than the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal even if talks resumed.

Murphy characterized the war as a catastrophic, generational mistake — “the greatest foreign policy disaster of the last 20 years [and] one of the greatest mistakes any president has made in the world in our country’s history,” which left the U.S. looking “weak and feckless.”

He said that, as a result of the munitions expenditures in the war, the U.S. could not defend Taiwan from China today if it wanted to.

Robert Greenway, who led Middle East policy on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first term, was the primary voice of optimism on the panel, arguing that despite some changing rhetoric, Trump’s objectives have been clear — dating back even to his first administration — and that there is “no question in my mind” that Iran’s capabilities have been significantly degraded.

“Their means and the opportunity to constitute a threat to U.S. vital interests and to global interests, as a matter of fact, are probably the lowest they have ever been since 1979. From the enrichment standpoint, they haven’t been at zero enrichment capacity since 2006,” Greenway said. “So, from an empirical perspective, I would say yes, progress has been made, and I think at this juncture, I would be pleased with that progress. And I don’t think there’s a lot left to be done to eliminate the remaining threat. 

He argued that those who are concerned by Iran’s disruptions of the global economy should be supportive of the administration’s military campaign, arguing that Iran would only be more emboldened under a nuclear and missile umbrella.

“This is the most practical way to solve it. Diplomacy up to this point hasn’t prevailed, and it won’t as long as you have a disingenuous partner,” Greenway said. “Now, Iran cannot defend itself from any attack by the United States, or frankly, anyone else.” 

Diplomacy, he reiterated, was a “failed approach” and he said military action is the “fastest” and “probably the only realistic way” to achieve the U.S.’ objectives.

He also said that definitively eliminating the threat from Iran would allow the U.S. to reduce its troop presence in the Middle East in the longer term. He said he doesn’t see any need for U.S. ground forces in Iran, arguing that the only potential uses for them would be for search and rescue operations or recovery of Iranian nuclear materials.

But with the nuclear materials currently buried and closely monitored, Greenway said, a ground infiltration to remove them isn’t necessary in the short term, though he said they should be removed from the country in the long term.

Countering Murphy, Greenway also said that many Middle East allies are privately supportive of continued U.S. military operations to finish the job, and are happy to see the threat of Iran reduced, though he acknowledged opinions vary.

Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, disputed Murphy’s notion that the result of the war would remove the U.S. as a guarantor of regional security. He said that the Gulf countries understand that only the U.S. can protect them in the near term — China and Russia not being viable alternatives — and they still understand and fear Iran as a threat.

But he also acknowledged that, as a consequence of geography, Middle Eastern states will need to seek side deals with Iran to some extent.

Sadjadpour also emphasized that there will never be lasting stability in the Middle East until Iran is led by a government that actually represents the interests of the Iranian people — an aim he said the war did not advance.

“It is militarily weaker than it was four and a half months ago, but … psychologically it feels much stronger. It’s much more confident than it was four and a half months ago before the war,” Sadjadpour said. “I don’t think it’s going to give up its control of the strait anytime soon. I don’t think it’s going to make meaningful compromise anytime soon.”

He compared the current situation in Turkey to post-Soviet Russia — continuing to pursue its own security and destabilize its neighbors, and use energy and trade as a weapon.

He added that leaders in the U.S. often misunderstand Iran, comparing it either to Nazi Germany, an ideologically rigid regime that cannot be bargained with, or to China, ripe for grand bargain and rapprochement. Iran is most similar, he said, to the Soviet Union — not suicidal but not willing to place its economic and national interests above its revolutionary ideology except when faced with “almost existential” economic pressure.

With the Iranians appearing prepared to wait out the Trump administration, Sadjadpour continued, he doesn’t see a clear end to the current war.

Roxana Saberi, a journalist and author with contacts inside Iran, said that most people in the country remain hopeful but were disappointed by the results of the war and the memorandum of understanding, which she said had demonstrably emboldened Iran to step up human rights abuses at home.

Among the anti-regime population in Iran, which she said constitutes 80% of the Iranian public, there are now three groups: those that opposed the war, those that supported it and want to see further strikes and those that have become numb to the situation and are simply trying to survive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced opposition to the Trump administration’s sale of jet engines and potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey on Monday, saying on “Fox & Friends” that such moves “will upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority” and “America’s posture” in the region. 

Netanyahu’s remarks came hours before President Donald Trump’s departure for a NATO summit in Turkey, on the sidelines of which Trump is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

“I don’t think [Turkey] should be given F-35s or the engines for their fighter jets,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Fox News.

He described Turkey as “infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America.”

Read more: https://t.co/gSW5VJLPfA pic.twitter.com/XKovNgVPJM

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 6, 2026

Last month, the Trump administration told Congress it was moving to sell more than $700 million of U.S.-made F-110 jet engines to the Turkish military and was reviewing Ankara’s eligibility for the F-35 program, in a potential change to U.S. sanctions which currently prevent Turkey from participating.

“I don’t think they should be given F-35s or the engines for their fighter jets,” Netanyahu said on Monday, describing Turkey as “infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America.” He also pointed to recent comments by Erdoğan and Turkish ministers that Netanyahu characterized as “calling for the annihilation of Israel.”

Netanyahu’s comments echo concerns shared by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, led by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA), who wrote to Trump last week warning that Erdoğan’s “constant and growing anti-Israel rhetoric” and ties to Iran make Turkey’s inclusion in the F-35 program unwise. 

When Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) narrowly prevailed in the Democratic primary for an open House seat in Phoenix in 2024, winning by just 39 votes in a deep-blue district, the Arizona lawmaker could attribute her success, in part, to strong backing from the local Jewish community as well as a surge of outside spending from a prominent pro-Israel group.

Many Jewish and pro-Israel leaders in the state and beyond were encouraged that Ansari, who identifies as a progressive, staked out what seemed at the time like a moderate approach to Middle East policy issues amid rising Democratic hostility toward Israel over the war in Gaza — particularly in the party’s far-left wing.

Ansari, an Iranian American and former vice mayor of Phoenix, drew a contrast with her top rival, Raquel Terán, a former state lawmaker and party chair who had raised concerns among Jewish activists over her lack of clarity on key issues, such as whether she supported aid to Israel. For her part, Ansari stressed her commitment to U.S. military funding for Israel “without additional conditions,” while saying in a position paper that the United States “must do everything in its power to stop” Iran “from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” which she argued “would pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Now, however, Ansari, 34, has largely turned away from the stances she embraced during her primary, aligning with a range of far-left policy positions that have led several Jewish and pro-Israel leaders to feel they were misled, they told Jewish Insider.

Alma Hernandez, a Democratic state representative in Tucson who had been one of Ansari’s top Jewish campaign surrogates in the 2024 primary, said she “was really excited for the idea of having someone like” Ansari in office, noting that she attended the congresswoman’s swearing-in ceremony in Washington to demonstrate her solidarity. 

“I have not talked to her since,” Hernandez said last week in an interview with JI. “I think a lot of folks in the community feel they were really used in a sense,” she added, alleging that Ansari “was very careful with all her words because she wanted the support and the financial backing” in a closely contested race. 

Hernandez added that she did not think she could reasonably support Ansari’s reelection or ask Jewish community members to get behind her as she had in the primary race two years ago.

In an interview with JI on Wednesday, Ansari said that she has received positive feedback from Jewish voters in her district about her position on Israel. “I do believe I still have significant support from the Jewish community in Arizona,” she added, affirming that her “relationship to Arizona’s Jewish community has always been, and will continue to be, one of deep engagement and mutual respect.”

“I’m sorry that some people may feel misled, but that’s not how I see it at all,” she said, arguing that her views on the Middle East simply underscore the extent to which “the context and the situation on the ground have changed dramatically since a couple of years ago.”

Ansari said her office keeps a log of local outreach that shows most of her constituents, “if not the vast majority, are pretty in line with the American public on this issue,” stressing voters overwhelmingly agree “that what has happened in Gaza has been atrocious, that we need to really consider using U.S. leverage on how to influence Israeli policy and deep opposition to the far-right Netanyahu government.”

Still, her erstwhile Jewish supporters said they felt betrayed by her shift and questioned her sincerity. “I still really can’t believe how she played us,” said one pro-Israel leader in the state who had enthusiastically backed Ansari’s 2024 bid and was granted anonymity to speak freely about frustrations with the freshman lawmaker. “I thought she was somebody different.”

In her first Middle East policy test as a member of Congress in January, Ansari broke with progressives in backing Republican-led legislation to sanction the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, even as she clarified it “wasn’t an easy vote.”

But since then, Ansari has adopted a more openly hostile approach to Israel that has fueled a mounting sense of disappointment among her Jewish allies who had believed she would strike a balanced tone while in the House. She is a co-sponsor of the Block the Bombs Act, which would impose sweeping new restrictions on weapons sales or transfers to Israel, for instance, and was an early backer of a Lebanon war powers resolution, introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), aimed at blocking U.S. support for Israeli military operations against Hezbollah, an Iranian terrorist proxy.

During an interview this week with Mehdi Hasan of the media outlet Zeteo that underscored her growing ties to the far left, Ansari said for the first time she believed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza as well as Lebanon, citing a U.N. report released this month. “I just don’t think we can continue to mince our words or deny what so many credible actors and institutions and doctors are saying,” she said of her thinking.

Ansari told JI she was “deeply sympathetic” to Jewish colleagues and constituents who “find the term genocide to be extremely hurtful,” saying that she did not “believe that a word should be used as a litmus test” in political debates over Israel that have consumed several recent Democratic primary races.

“Ultimately,” she said, “being clear about what has happened in Gaza and what continues to happen is not to minimize the horrors of either the Holocaust or the violence committed on Oct. 7 by Hamas, and I continue to condemn that forcefully and continue to believe Israelis deserve to live in peace and security in the state of Israel, and I believe we need a secure Palestinian state.”

Elsewhere in the Zeteo discussion, Ansari said that she remained uncertain about where she would land on an anticipated House vote over an amendment led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to slash the annual $3.3 billion in military aid the U.S. is set to provide Israel in the 2027 State Department funding bill, a controversial effort that Jewish activists in Arizona have urged her to oppose, according to a recent email shared with JI.

She also vowed to reject financial assistance from pro-Israel groups including AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, the latter of which endorsed her 2024 campaign and pumped more than $400,000 into the race to boost her bid, hailing her victory as proof “that being pro-Israel is not just wise policy, but also winning politics.” 

“I just don’t want anyone to think that any of my decisions are influenced by any organization,” she explained to Zeteo. “They never, quite frankly, have been or should.”

Speaking with JI, Ansari said she has continued to engage with DMFI and has a “respectful relationship” with the group, even as she now disavows its support. “I really do find the villainization of the members of these organizations to be very problematic,” she said of the pro-Israel community. “That’s why I have very much not been antagonistic, because I don’t want to give in to that.”

DMFI’s super PAC declined to comment on Ansari’s remarks. A spokesperson for AIPAC did not return a request for comment.

Ansari’s lack of interest in backing from AIPAC comes as the group’s brand has become toxic in a number of Democratic primaries, particularly those in progressive-minded districts. And her shift to a more skeptical position on the U.S.-Israel alliance is reflective of broader polling trends that show eroding support for Israel in both parties — especially among younger voters.

But according to a source with first-hand knowledge of the matter who spoke with JI on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject, Ansari had “worked tirelessly” in her primary to claim an AIPAC endorsement, crafting a position paper with its policy expectations in mind, meeting with AIPAC’s staff and pledging to visit Israel on an AIPAC-sponsored trip if elected to Congress. 

AIPAC held off on supporting Ansari because it was unconvinced about her views and out of deference to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who was backing Terán and asked the group to remain neutral in the primary, the source noted.

Not long after she had entered the House, Ansari privately reiterated her interest in visiting Israel on an AIPAC-led congressional delegation, according to the source. But despite her prior outreach, her team said then that she did not want an AIPAC endorsement — indicating that it was too early in her tenure and she needed more time to acquaint herself with the group.

Ansari did not dispute that account but added there were irreconcilable disagreements with AIPAC that precluded constructive conversation, not to mention an endorsement. “The truth, from my perspective, is that there was never any room for policy differences with AIPAC,” she said, while stressing that the group “continued to provide feedback on” her positions that she was “unwilling to make.”

Despite having voiced interest in visiting Israel with AIPAC, Ansari said she “could not justify taking part” in a trip last year, amid “the continuation of violence in Gaza” and “well into the Trump administration.” Her outspoken opposition to the war in Iran subsequently hardened her resistance to such a trip, she suggested.

One pro-Israel activist in Arizona said that Jewish leaders who got behind Ansari in 2024 and are now stung by her reversals should not necessarily feel surprised, noting she had no demonstrable record as a strong supporter of Israel prior to her campaign for Congress.

In some ways, Ansari’s evolution echoes that of Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a fellow progressive who was elected in 2022 after making a range of commitments to uphold support for Israel that he has since reneged on in Congress, stoking disenchantment among local Jewish leaders who were initially energized over his campaign.

But while Frost had engaged in private diplomacy with DMFI to preempt attacks as he ran against the group’s preferred candidate, Ansari actively courted and accepted support from the pro-Israel community in her primary, a key distinguishing factor of the race featuring an opponent seen as more critical of Israel. 

Zachary Bell, a Jewish community activist in Phoenix who has spoken to Ansari about Israel and Gaza, said that he was “very happy with how she has responded” to the wars in the Middle East. “I am far from a super far-left, anti-Israel person,” he clarified. “I think there is a wide range of opinions on this issue in the Jewish community,” he added. “She has done a very good job seriously engaging with people across that spectrum.”

Bell volunteers with J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy group, but said he was speaking for himself. J Street endorsed Terán, Ansari’s primary rival, in 2024, and it has not backed Ansari this cycle, as she runs unopposed for a second term in Arizona’s solidly Democratic 3rd Congressional District. 

A Jewish community leader in Arizona said Ansari’s shifting stances on Israel indicate that she no longer feels she needs support from former pro-Israel allies to continue holding her seat. “She’s packing her bags for reelection, and there is a weight limit,” the Jewish leader told JI. “Israel, right now, weighs too much for her.”

Adam Goodman, a Jewish activist in Phoenix who supported Ansari’s campaign in 2024, said he was aligned with the congresswoman “on many issues,” calling her “smart, pragmatic and engaging, with a long political career ahead of her.”

But while he had once praised Ansari as “unequivocal in her support for Israel,” Goodman suggested he has since grown disillusioned about the congresswoman’s current approach. 

“Unfortunately,” he told JI, “she is demagoguing Israel without holding other countries to the same standard.”

Ansari, for her part, said that her views were more carefully considered than her critics speculated and dismissed accusations that she is playing politics on Israel. “I’m not somebody who jumps on any sort of bandwagon,” she insisted to JI. “I think very deeply about foreign policy.”

“We are having quite the reckoning within the Democratic caucus and Congress about all of these issues right now,” she said.

Top Middle East analysts — including the Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour and Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Dubowitz — offered starkly different takes on whether the United States or Iran has emerged in a stronger strategic position following the recent U.S.-Iran conflict, yet shared a deeply critical view of the preliminary memorandum of understanding brokered between Washington and Tehran.

Speaking on Monday at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado during a panel discussion moderated by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that Tehran successfully leveraged the crisis to its advantage.

“Iran is in a much better place now than it was four months ago, before the war,” Sadjadpour said. “I think the biggest advantage they now have is controlling the Strait of Hormuz. They want to try to turn it, if not into the Panama Canal, at least have administrative control over it.”

Sadjadpour expressed deep skepticism that the Islamic Republic has any intention of making the fundamental concessions that the Trump administration has long demanded.

“I don’t think that they plan to make any meaningful compromises on the points which President Trump hoped to advance before the war, which is their nuclear program, their missile program, their regional proxies,” Sadjadpour said. “If you read that memorandum of understanding, which I call a ‘memorandum of misunderstanding,’ the two sides have very different takeaways from that. Really, the only thing it asks of Iran is a vague nuclear compromise, but it concedes the idea that after 60 days, perhaps they could control the strait. There’s nothing in there about missiles or proxies.”

Sadjadpour added that the conflict has inadvertently reinvigorated an Iranian regime that had otherwise appeared to be buckling under domestic dissent prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

“Four months ago, I used to describe the Islamic Republic as a zombie regime with a dying ideology, a dying leader, and dying legitimacy,” he observed. “I fear, at least in the immediate term, that we’ve kind of breathed new life into this zombie regime. It has a newfound self-confidence.”

He noted that while the war and protests among the Iranian public should have forced Tehran to rethink its priorities, the regime ultimately drew the wrong conclusions from the conflict.

“A lot of governments would say, ‘You know what? It is time for us to prioritize our economic and national interests first, instead of our ideology being death to America and death to Israel’ — which has gotten them into two catastrophic wars and triggered continuous popular uprisings,” Sadjadpour said. “But I actually think the regime has reached the opposite conclusion: that revolutionary ideology is not an albatross around the neck that’s going to sink the regime, it’s actually proven to be a life preserver, and we’re going to double down on it.”

Veteran Middle East journalist Ghattas similarly argued that the war has not led to a favorable outcome for the U.S. and has left the Iranian people in a worse position.

“I don’t see yet how this leads us to a better place in the region, and there’s a sense of despair in Iran,” Ghattas said. “It’s hard to get access to voices in Iran, but I think people feel betrayed.”

She added, however, that Tehran did suffer some losses, including that its “regional project has been severely damaged.” Ghattas also notedthat Iran has “lost their foothold in Syria.” 

Offering an opposing perspective, Dubowitz, CEO of FDD, countered that Tehran has actually suffered an unprecedented, devastating strategic and military defeat.

“The United States of America is winning, Israel is winning and the Islamic Republic of Iran is losing,” Dubowitz insisted, pointing to the physical damage inflicted on Iran’s sensitive facilities.

“Their nuclear infrastructure is severely degraded, the top 40 of their nuclear weapons scientists have been eliminated, and their nuclear sites are in ruins, with nuclear dust under the rubble,” Dubowitz added. “Their nuclear program has been set back by years, and their missile program has been severely curtailed.” Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, he argued could have allowed Tehran to target America, is “obliterated.” 

But Dubowitz agreed that the White House squandered its upper hand by rushing into a substandard diplomatic framework.

“Why would you take that incredible military leverage and negotiate a fatally flawed MOU, which looks like it was written by the Qataris, written by the Iranians, and translated by ChatGPT into English?” Dubowitz asked. “It’s a terrible agreement. Why would you squander all that leverage at the negotiating table?”

According to Dubowitz, the driving force behind the agreement stemmed from  domestic political pressures rather than long-term geopolitical strategy. Trump, he argued, felt compelled to secure a quick pause in hostilities to stabilize the U.S. economy ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

“Why? Because Trump needs to hold the House, he needs to hold the Senate, he needs to punt to November,” Dubowitz said. “He needs to open Hormuz, he needs to get gasoline and oil prices down, inflation down, and punt to November. And then he’s got two years and three months to double down on his Iran strategy” until his term is over.

“I think what Trump did is he realized ‘I have serious leverage, but I have a time issue,’” he continued. “So two parties are going in for an MOU, neither believes that either party is going to comply with it, and for their own reasons they need to hit the pause button.”

Sadjadpour noted, however, that those within the president’s inner circle remain deeply divided over whether the current diplomatic pause represents a genuine policy shift or a mere tactical intermission.

“When you talk to people who are in daily contact with the president, they will tell you very different things about where his mind is on this,” Sadjadpour said. “Some will tell you that this MOU was just temporary, don’t take it that seriously — ‘We needed to bring down the price of oil, and if within two months the Iranians are not playing ball, he’ll go back to the blockade or back to bombing.’ I speak to other people who are in daily contact with the president who say no, he’s done with Iran.”

At a launch event for his book, The Arab Case for Israel, on Tuesday, writer and researcher Hussain Abdul-Hussain argued that the path to peace in the Middle East begins with Arabs reexamining long-held assumptions about Israel, drawing on his own transformation from believing anti-Israel propaganda to an advocate for the Jewish state. 

Speaking days after Israel and Lebanon signed a U.S.-brokered framework agreement, Abdul-Hussain said the Lebanese people can follow in his footsteps, as the country remains divided between a faction that promotes the Iranian narrative that Israel “only understands the language of war and force,” and those seeking to reclaim the country’s sovereignty. 

“The Lebanese have had their share of sacrifices for big powers. This started back in the 1960s. The Lebanese will stand up for sovereignty and independence. They’ve been thrown under the bus time and time again and this makes them always wary and they try not to stick their neck out… this is what’s keeping them back,” Abdul-Hussain said. 

The invitation-only event for the book, published in February, was hosted by Antoun Sehnaoui, businessman and philanthropist, and Morgan Ortagus, former deputy U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, at the Mark Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Abdul-Hussain, a Shia Muslim raised in Iraq and Lebanon where he said he was taught to hate Israel and the West, is now a Washington-based research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The Arab Case for Israel chronicles his unusual journey away from holding anti-Israel views, detailing his argument for why all Arabs should do the same.

“My story is the story of an average person who was told something and when he dug up the story it turned out to be something else,” Abdul-Hussain told some 50 attendees — a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims —  at the event. “I was taught, like every other kid was taught, that Israel must disappear. And I believed it.” 

“Over the course of my life, events pushed me to try to learn about Israel.” The biggest turning point, he recalled, was in 2000 while he was working as a reporter in Lebanon. “We covered the Israeli military pulling out of the south and that day I drove my car to the border, which at the time was just a flimsy wire so I could see Israelis,” said Abdul-Hussain. “I became really curious. At the time, I could get on the FM radio of the Israeli channels. If you were in Lebanon at the time, your sources on Israel were [staunch Israel critics] Edward Said, [Noam] Chomsky and [Norman] Finkelstein.” 

After learning Hebrew, Abdul-Hussain said he “discovered everything they taught us about Jews — that they were scheming to kill every Arab Lebanese kid —  was not true. 

“It was a long journey and I decided this journey must be told for other Lebanese, Syrians and Moroccans to understand what they are being fed is not true. I make the case that even if you think Israel has caused you injustice, moving on is much better for your future and the future of your children and grandchildren,” he said.  

As Hezbollah continues to oppose the framework agreement aimed at restoring sovereignty and establishing lasting peace, Abdul-Hussain called on Americans to support the efforts of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to resist the terror group. 

“One of the main criticisms against President Aoun and his government is that he’s talking the talk and not walking the walk,” said Abdul-Hussain. “I understand that. But the guy is going all the way against Hezbollah. He’s being vilified and taking a lot of heat. The last thing he needs is for someone like me to try to push him down. Even if he’s not walking the walk, talking the talk is good enough.”  

He also called on the U.S. to implement a long-term policy of protecting religious minorities in the Middle East “to make sure that non-Muslim minorities do not vanish.” 

“The pattern of minority shrinking is happening all over the place, except for one place, and that’s Israel,” he said. He pointed to Lebanon where lists of registered voters show that Christians are 35% of the population, whereas 20 years ago they made up about half of the population.  

“The trends are not lying. This is bad for everyone. It’s bad for diversity,” Abdul-Hussain continued.   

“We in the U.S. should send the message to minorities that we are with you, that we will not let [adversaries] come after you and that Israel is something to be proud of.” 

Former U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie on Monday voiced his support for the U.S. to shift its military footprint in the Middle East westward, including in Israel, to mitigate threats from Iran. 

Speaking on a Jewish Institute for National Security of America webinar, McKenzie said, “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran [in Qatar], yet that’s where it is. Because when we put it in place many years ago, we were thinking Iraq, we were thinking Afghanistan, we were thinking other things, and not the growing threat from Iran.”

The U.S. has long operated a sprawling network of bases across the Middle East as critical hubs for air operations, naval logistics, and intelligence gathering, housing between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel. These include Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base — the largest U.S. military facility in the region — and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, alongside key installations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

However, throughout the conflict with Iran, U.S. bases across the region came under repeated drone and missile fire from Tehran and its proxies. Recent reports have suggested that the U.S. is considering moving the damaged bases westward further out of Iran’s range, including in Israel. 

The U.S. does not currently maintain a permanent, sovereign military base in Israel, though American forces temporarily operated out of Israel’s Ovda Air Base during the conflict with Iran and the U.S. stationed dozens of military refueling and cargo aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport.

McKenzie argued in support of JINSA’s position that the U.S. should continue operations at Israel’s Ovda Air Base on an ongoing basis. 

“What we’ve got is a situation where it’s good to be close to your potential enemy, because it’s a short commute to the fight,” McKenzie said. “But it’s bad to be close to your potential enemy, because he has the ability to strike you very quickly.”

While McKenzie argued that the U.S. should maintain its existing Gulf footprint to signal continued solidarity with regional partners, he noted that an anchor in Israel would grant Washington unparalleled operational flexibility. “The goal is to spread out that necklace of bases far to the west, where you make it harder for the Iranians to reach you,” he said, though he cautioned that the strategy faces a shelf-life as Tehran continues to expand its missile capabilities.

“We need to look at basing in Israel. I think it’s a great idea,” McKenzie said, suggesting that Ben Gurion could continue to serve as a vital refueling hub for American tankers. He also pointed to Egypt, Jordan, and Oman as viable components of a broader western basing network designed to complicate Iran’s targeting calculus.

Israel provides a unique advantage over traditional Gulf hosts, McKenzie argued, because it is far less likely to impose strict political or operational parameters on American missions.

“Of all the countries, one thing that’s significant is the [host] country … they’re going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off,” McKenzie explained. “Probably Israel is the place where you’re going to have the fewest ABO [access, basing, and overflight] restrictions on your airplanes. That’s why Israel is a particularly attractive location.”

Beyond fewer diplomatic hurdles, McKenzie emphasized that Israel remains an ideal option because its multi-layered air-defense architecture makes it uniquely resilient against incoming fire. “That’s probably the most significant thing,” he said. Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in Qatar and Bahrain forced the U.S. to evacuate or disperse personnel and relocate troops after missiles damaged several facilities.

McKenzie revealed that CENTCOM had previously proposed a similar western contingency plan to the Biden administration, but encountered stiff bureaucratic resistance.

“We had plans to do this, plans that were not supported by the policy shop in the Pentagon during the Biden administration. But I think now is the time to go back and take a look at it,” McKenzie said. “It just really was a refusal to examine the reality of the situation on the ground and the growing trend of Iranian rearmament weaponization, which placed these bases at a very close range to Iran under increasing degrees of risk.”

When asked whether shifting forces westward would satisfy the ongoing memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran — which requires the U.S. to withdraw forces from the “immediate proximity” of Iran within 30 days of a final deal — McKenzie remained noncommittal, expressing strong skepticism.

“I think we still need to further negotiate what removal from immediate proximity of Iran means,” McKenzie said. “It would be easy to say moving west would grant you that visibility. I’m just not sure I’d recommend that, and I’m not sure that this administration is going to want to do that.”

Addressing whether a permanent U.S. presence would put Israel at a heightened risk for more frequent or intense Iranian or proxy strikes, McKenzie acknowledged the potential but argued the protective benefits outweigh the downsides, stating: “I’m not sure how we could get to a higher level” of threat environment.

“Yes, possibly. But on the other hand, what you gain by U.S. basing there is you gain the use of those aircraft against [Iran] in order to reduce the frequency, duration and intensity of those attacks,” McKenzie said. “I’d rather have U.S. forces there than not.”

Historian and prominent neoconservative foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan claimed the U.S. was “never supporting Israel for strategic reasons” and that American strategy in the Middle East has come “to be about defending the interests of Israel,” during a live taping on Friday of “The Long Game” podcast — hosted by former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer — at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.

Finer, who served as principal deputy national security advisor in the Biden administration and also worked with Sullivan under President Barack Obama, asked Kagan if he believes Israel is still a democracy and if Israel is still a U.S. ally, “given [their] increasingly divergent interests.”

Calling Israel “at least an imperfect democracy,” Kagan said, “Our discussion of Israel [has become] one in which we began to believe that we had a vital interest in supporting Israel. We started supporting Israel out of a sense of moral obligation. And I think that was a noble thing to do after World War II and the Holocaust, etc. But we never were supporting Israel for strategic reasons.”

“In fact, much of our strategy in the region came to be about defending the interests of Israel, because they were an ally, because we felt an obligation to them,” Kagan, who has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continued.

“I’ve always felt about Israel roughly the way I feel about Taiwan, you know, that we have an obligation as a defender of a country that we have the responsibility for, but not that, you know, not that it somehow transcends basic understanding of our interests.”

Kagan said that in his view, “Israel’s vision for the Middle East has never been a vision that the United States should sign up to, because Israel’s attitude is basically the Arab Muslim peoples can’t — ‘we don’t want them in democracies, we want them ruled by strong men who can control them. We fear a public opinion among Arabs and Palestinians, and therefore we don’t want to give them that opportunity.’” 

“I just don’t think that is a sustainable position to take over the long run in the Middle East, and it should never have been America’s position,” he contended.

Kagan rose to prominence as a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, the influential neoconservative think tank that advocated for an assertive American global role, and helped shape Republican foreign policy debates before and after the 9/11 attacks. He generally viewed Israel as a key U.S. democratic ally in the Middle East and supported a close U.S.-Israel strategic partnership.

Kagan later became one of Trump’s earliest conservative critics, leaving the Republican Party in 2016 as he argued that Trump’s “America First” foreign policy represented a break with decades of U.S. global leadership. 

On the war with Iran and the U.S.’ involvement in the Middle East generally, Sullivan read from Kagan’s March 2026 piece in The Atlantic, where he argued that American intervention in the region is a causal factor of terrorism: “Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two oceans away. Contrary to much mythology, they have hated us not so much because of ‘who we are’ but because of where we are,” he wrote in the piece. 

“The thing that I find surprising about Americans is that we’re constantly shocked that others are reacting to us,” Kagan said in response on Friday, saying the same dynamic was at play in Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, which the U.S. “brought on” by embargoing Japan. 

He said U.S. involvement in the Middle East made more sense “when America was solidly behind the American world order, when we were solidly behind supporting our allies in Europe and Asia, when we took it on as responsibility to maintain the overall security of our allies.” But “when we are actively abandoning any thought of supporting the international system we’ve supported” under Trump, “the one place we’re going to go to war is in the Persian Gulf? That’s what makes no sense to me.”

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we speak with former White House officials and Middle East experts about the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions on Iranian oil sales through August, and report on the concerns of Senate Republicans over the U.S. effort to halt Israeli operations against Hezbollah. We report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s intervention in today’s New York primaries, as well as the mayor’s comments doubling down on his rhetorical assault on AIPAC. We also report on a highly charged telephone call between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as revealed in a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Susan Collins, Rep. Steny Hoyer and Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun.

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

What We’re Watching

• Voters in Maryland, New York and Utah are heading to the polls for their primaries today. The biggest races to watch are in New York, where New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has endorsed three far-left, anti-Israel candidates running against Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. We’re also closely watching the hotly contested Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), in a Manhattan district with the largest Jewish constituency in the country. 
• In Maryland, we’re keeping a close eye on the race to replace former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), where state Del. Adrian Boafo, endorsed by the outgoing congressman and a strong ally of Israel, has emerged as the favorite. See more below. 
• Israeli and Lebanese representatives are expected to begin multiday talks in Washington in a continuation of the countries’ direct negotiations, starting with a joint military and political session, days after the U.S. and Iran said they had established a “deconfliction cell” to end military operations in Lebanon without Israel’s involvement. 
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted multiple times on Monday that the IDF retains the right to act against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon if necessary, as Axios reported that the Israeli government fears the U.S. is limiting its freedom of action through its negotiations with Iran. On Tuesday morning, the IDF said it struck armed terrorists operating close to Israeli soldiers in Ali al-Taher Ridge area in southern Lebanon.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio is departing for a three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain to discuss issues including the memorandum of understanding with Iran and transit through the Strait of Hormuz. 
• Orthodox Union Advocacy will hold its annual lobbying day on the Hill, including a luncheon with senators from both parties.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S matthew kassel

As Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) prepares to step down at the end of his current term, the former Democratic House majority leader is staking his pro-Israel legacy on a little-known candidate who he hopes will uphold his long-standing commitment to maintaining a close relationship with the Jewish state.

In throwing his support behind Adrian Boafo, a 32-year-old Maryland state delegate who is among two dozen Democratic candidates running in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District primary on Tuesday, Hoyer, 87, is using his connections to establishment party leaders and ties with pro-Israel groups to boost his hand-picked choice to the nomination for a safely blue seat.

United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, has emerged as the biggest spender in the race, investing more than $5.7 million as part of an aggressive effort to promote Boafo launched by Hoyer and his allies. 

The well-funded foray is a useful illustration of the degree to which planning and organization helped put Boafo in contention for the seat Hoyer has held for 45 years, in contrast with recent primaries where UDP and other pro-Israel advocacy groups have been relatively cautious with their engagement while being outflanked by the far left.

A UDP source, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the race, said polling showed Boafo was not in the lead when Hoyer endorsed him in January. “It’s a super close race that could go either way,” the source told Jewish Insider on Monday, stressing a high level of undecided primary voters. “Many candidates are in contention.”

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

EASY MONEY

Middle East experts warn Trump administration is surrendering leverage with Iran oil waiver

Former White House officials and Middle East experts are expressing concern over the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions on Iranian oil sales through August, warning that Tehran will gain significant revenue it could use for malign activities before it demonstrates concrete progress on its diplomatic commitments, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The move was made in response to Tehran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow international nuclear inspectors into the country following weekend talks in Switzerland, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a claim which Iranian officials have denied.

Airing concerns: When asked whether the Iranians could use the profits from oil sales for malign activity, President Donald Trump said “they’re not supposed to be doing that,” and that Tehran is meant to use the income to purchase agricultural goods from the U.S. “Why give them the money to stabilize the regime and start rebuilding their military before they have done anything at all on their nuclear program?” Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration, asked. “Why do we just get promises while they get billions?”

Read the full story here.

Talking to terror: Vice President JD Vance on Monday backed Iran’s participation in bringing about the end of the military conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, while talking at a press conference in Switzerland. “Of course, Israel has to respond to that,” he said of Hezbollah attacks on northern Israeli towns, “but … we could actually have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that’s ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.”

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SKEPTICAL SENATORS

Senate Republicans take issue with administration’s effort to curb Israeli operations against Hezbollah

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that Israel’s right to self-defense must be protected in U.S. talks with Iran, after administration officials publicly urged Israel to cease operations against Hezbollah as part of the recent memorandum of understanding — even though Israel, Hezbollah and Lebanon are not parties to that agreement, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.

Lebanon lens: “I just want to make sure that Israel is able to defend itself, and I think whatever happens as a result of these talks, that is something that needs to be maintained,” Thune said. “Hopefully the U.S.-Israeli relationship will remain such that we fully understand their need to be able to defend themselves, and right now on their northern border, they’re being attacked daily.” Other Senate Republicans also took issue with the administration’s efforts to halt anti-Hezbollah operations, as well as with the lifting of sanctions on Iran.

Read the full story here with additional comments from Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), James Lankford (R-OK), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Ted Budd (R-NC), John Kennedy (R-LA), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Tim Kaine (D-VA). 

Standing strong: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) accused Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner of antisemitism and defended her support for Israel in a Fox News interview on Monday, JI’s Marc Rod reports. “I remain a very strong supporter of Israel, the one democracy in the Middle East, our true ally in the Middle East,” Collins said when asked about increasing hostility to Israel and AIPAC among the American public.

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BOOK BOMBSHELL

Trump told Netanyahu ‘all the Jews are sick of you,’ days before Gaza deal, new book reveals

President Donald Trump grew so frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during last September’s negotiations over a U.S.-brokered deal to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, that Trump cursed and yelled at Netanyahu in a phone call days before the agreement was announced publicly, according to a new book, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Tense talk: “Everybody’s sick of you, Bibi,” Trump said in a phone call with Netanyahu, Jared Kushner and White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, according to a book published on Tuesday by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan chronicling the first year of Trump’s second term. “All the Jews are sick of you. Even the two Jews on this call are sick of you.” 

Read the full story here.

Elsewhere: The White House’s “Rapid Response” X account boosted an Al Jazeera video interview about U.S.-Iran negotiations with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, calling it “the real story from people actually in the room,” JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.

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RABBI ROADBLOCK

Another Mamdani primary election test: Keeping a rabbi out of the state Legislature

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s intervention in a state-level race in Manhattan could also reverberate through the city’s Jewish community and beyond. The mayor has inserted himself in the costly fight between Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay and lawyer Eli Northrup for the 69th Assembly District on the Upper West Side, spurning a key Jewish ally in the process, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.

Picking sides: Rival left-of-center Jewish factions have lined up behind each candidate: the anti-Zionist Jews for Racial and Economic Justice behind public defender Eli Northrup, and a suite of long-standing Jewish elected officials — including City Comptroller Mark Levine and his predecessor Scott Stringer — with Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay, associate dean of The Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Ruskay’s prominent backers include her longtime friend and mentor, former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, one of Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish supporters. Multiple sources told JI that Messinger had personally asked the mayor not to get involved in the race, but Mamdani did so anyway, even releasing one of his signature social media videos featuring Northrup.

Read the full story here.

Doubling down: Mamdani doubled down on his rhetorical assault on AIPAC on Monday, after Jewish groups over the weekend criticized his comments about the pro-Israel organization at a Thursday rally last week that they argued evoked classic antisemitic tropes.

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ACROSS THE POND

Starmer’s resignation puts Burnham’s record on Israel, antisemitism in the spotlight

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday set up a leadership battle within the Labour Party and raised the question of how his likely successor will deal with one of the issues that brought Starmer to office in the first place: combating antisemitism. Starmer’s successor is likely to be Andy Burnham, a newly sworn-in Labour MP representing a district that includes parts of the Greater Manchester region in the north of England. He spent the last nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, home to the second-largest Jewish community in the U.K, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Community approach: Jewish community leaders in Manchester have close ties with Burnham, whom they view as an ally. He earned praise for strongly supporting the community after a terror attack on Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation last year on Yom Kippur, in which two congregants were murdered. Burnham’s record on Israel is relatively short — he has not brought Middle East politics into his mayoralty in the way that some other local leaders have focused on the issue. “I think he’ll be strong on antisemitism, on Holocaust education and on tackling Jew hatred, but it remains to be seen about Israel. I don’t think he’ll change the government’s position much, if at all,” said Raphi Bloom, director of fundraising and marketing at the Fed, a Jewish social services charity in Manchester.

Read the full story here.

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moco moment

Montgomery County, Md., exec candidates clash over antisemitism records as Jewish vote looms large

Ahead of Tuesday’s primary election for executive of Montgomery County, Md., progressives have largely broken for Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando, leaving the more moderate Councilmembers Andrew Friedson and Evan Glass to jockey for the remaining undecided voters, Jewish Insider’s Christina Sher reports. The vote of the Jewish community — which is, according to a source familiar with the race, expected to account for more than one-fifth of primary turnout in the county with Maryland’s largest Jewish population — could be especially critical.

Eye on antisemitism: Jewish leaders have raised the alarm on antisemitism in the deep-blue county — which saw the highest rate of incidents in the state in 2025 — and the particular issue of antisemitism in the area’s public schools. Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told JI that Jawando, Glass and Friedson “have all denounced antisemitism during their eight-year terms in the council” and said he hopes that other community leaders “awake from their slumber” to speak out against hate without needing to be prompted by the Jewish community.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

AI Accuracy?: ForumAI CEO Campbell Brown writes in The Wall Street Journal about AI models’ limitations in assessing accurate information. “We tested the major AI models on three dimensions this group identified as the foundation of trustworthy information: quality of sources, factual accuracy and whether they present a response with real balance or just the appearance of it. We found serious gaps: The models misstated public opinion on political topics and attributed quotations to people who didn’t say them … The most revealing failures were much subtler. When we asked the major models something as basic as what form of government the U.S. has, one of them, Claude Opus 4.7, cited Global Times, a Chinese state-run tabloid.” [WSJ]

MOU As Rough Draft: In Newsweek, former White House Middle East Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt offers a conflicted but measured assessment of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, drawing from his diplomatic experience during Trump’s first term. “I read the 14 points of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) the way I used to read drafts in the White House and, before that, for two decades at The Trump Organization: pen in hand, marking up every clause … My honest reaction, reading it that way, is that I have serious questions about its structure and its terms … And yet I know how incomplete my reaction is, coming from someone standing outside the room. I spent three years watching the gap between what the public saw and what was actually happening behind closed doors, and I learned that the view from outside the room almost always misses things the people inside knew or were reaching for.” [Newsweek] 

Trump’s ‘Surrender’: Former Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), now board chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, slams President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran as a mirage obfuscating his negotiation failures. “Like the arsonist who wants credit for putting out the fire he started, Mr. Trump now claims victory with a deal that pauses Iran’s use of a previously unused weapon — a weapon that may be as powerful as its nuclear threat — the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Add to that the release of hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran and you have the real Art of the Deal: surrender and betrayal of the American people, the Gulf States, Israel, and our NATO allies.” [Substack]

What Greenspan Meant: Greg Ip, The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, reflects on the impact Alan Greenspan, who died on Monday, left on the country and on Ip personally, after years covering him as he reported on the Federal Reserve. “He was introverted, but came alive when the topic of conversation interested him. Luckily, our interests overlapped. For my fellow journalists and me, Greenspan wasn’t just a news subject but a bottomless well of insight and ideas. And he loved that role. I came away from every meeting with Greenspan smarter. Admonished for not knowing Knut Wicksell’s theory of the natural rate of interest, I quickly brushed up. After a discussion of Keynesian prescriptions for preventing depression in the 1940s, he sent me to read George Terborgh, an obscure economist with a contrarian and bullish view on American potential.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

The FBI announced the arrest of two more individuals who allegedly plotted to attack members of Congress connected to the “pro-Israel lobby” at the UFC event at the White House last week, joining five other suspects charged with conspiracy to commit murder…

Three people were killed in a shooting attack in Côte-des-Neiges, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Montreal. A civilian, a police officer and the suspect were confirmed dead by Montreal police, while one other police officer was seriously injured but in stable condition, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen and Tamara Zieve report…

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is investigating a Brooklyn cafe after it banned Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) from its store, posting discriminatory messages online that accused the congressman of enabling genocide and tying him to AIPAC, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

The coffee shop is owned by Parviz Mukhamadkulov, who, the Free Beacon reported, is a donor to scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner… 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced last week that he had been endorsed by the anti-Israel group TrackAIPAC, which has faced widespread accusations of antisemitism, after becoming the first politician or candidate to sign a new “pledge” promulgated by the group, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called Vice President JD Vance’s conduct in negotiations with Iran over the weekend “humiliating,” slamming Vance — while continuing to praise President Donald Trump — on his show on Monday for “looking weak in front of the Qataris, the Pakistanis and most of all, the Iranians”…

Three men killed in a small plane crash in Bowie, Md., on Saturday night have been identified as Israeli citizens, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems announced it would phase out its use of Chinese-manufactured vehicles, following similar moves by other entities including the IDF and Rafael as the vehicles are increasingly viewed as a security risk by both Jerusalem and Washington…

Shin Bet chief David Zini has instructed officials to prepare for a potential attack in Israel’s southern resort city, warning that “the next October 7 will be in Eilat,” Haaretz reports, citing security sources… 

An independent U.N. inquiry found that Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank. The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the report as a “libelous sham,” and said it “lacks any credible verification mechanism for its claims” and ignores “Hamas’ cynical use of Palestinian children as human shields”…

A federal investigation found that the condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla., almost exactly five years ago, that killed 98 people began with a structural failure in the building’s garage three weeks earlier…

The New York Times spotlights “Food Network” star Ina Garten’s foray into podcasting with her forthcoming show “Happy Hour With Ina Garten,” after Vox Media secured the in-demand contract in a seven-figure deal…

Alan Greenspan — the influential economist who led the Federal Reserve for 19 years across four presidencies — died on Monday at 100, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Music executive Clive Davis, who championed the careers of stars including Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and Barry Manilow, died on Monday at 94…

Pic of the Day

Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said on Monday that his office, under President Donald Trump, had been given a broader remit across the federal government, including assisting in the recent arrest and indictment of an alleged mastermind of attacks on Jewish communities in Europe and the U.S.

Kaploun said at an Orthodox Union conference in Washington that his office had worked with the Department of Justice, FBI, intelligence community and the White House to help bring to justice Mohammed Al-Saadi, an Iranian Iraqi Kata-ib Hizballah operative allegedly involved in more than two dozen attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the U.S., Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

Birthdays

Ethiopian-born Israeli model who won the title of Miss Israel in 2013, Yityish “Titi” Aynaw turns 35… 

Real estate developer and co-founder of Tishman Speyer, Jerry Speyer turns 86… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Clarence Thomas turns 78… Senior advisor at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, he is the author of 24 books on foreign affairs, global politics and travel, Robert D. Kaplan turns 74… Novelist and journalist, Roy Hoffman turns 73… Los Angeles-based socialite, restaurateur and breast cancer fundraiser, a 2008 Lifetime Television movie starring Renée Zellweger portrayed her cancer-fighting efforts, Lilly Tartikoff Karatz turns 73… Klezmer expert, violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright, Yale Strom turns 69… Senior director of health policy at the National Consumers League until 2024, Robin Strongin… President of the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals, Dr. Jonathan Solomon Stamler turns 67… Sports memorabilia marketer, in 2009 his firm sold all of the seats, signs and lockers from the old Yankee Stadium, Brandon Steiner turns 67… Member of the Pennsylvania state Senate until 2020, now president of Cannabis GPO, Daylin Leach turns 65… Editorial director of Ben Yehuda Press, Lawrence Yudelson… Former teacher for 19 years at Golda Och Academy in West Orange, N.J., she is on Hadassah’s 2025 list of 18 American Zionist Women You Should Know, Stephanie Z. Bonder… Israeli-American professor, journalist and filmmaker, Boaz Dvir turns 59… Film and television actor, her Hebrew name is Bat-Sheva, Selma Blair Beitner turns 54… U.S. special envoy for hostage response, Adam Seth Boehler turns 53… EVP and general manager of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, Howie Roseman turns 51… President and COO of D1 Capital Partners, he was deputy director of the White House National Economic Council in the Trump 45 administration, Jeremy Katz… Founder of Innovation: Africa, which uses Israeli solar technology to bring electricity and solar-powered water pumps to impoverished African villages, Sivan Borowich-Ya’ari turns 48… Actor and comedian, best known for playing Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on CBS’ sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” Melissa Rauch turns 46… Actor, singer and model, Marielle Jaffe turns 37… Executive assistant to the CEO at Jazz, Gila Bublick turns 37… Western regional major gifts director at United Hatzalah of Israel, Ely Benhamo… Recent MBA graduate at Columbia Business School, Josh Lauder…

Former White House officials and Middle East experts are expressing concern over the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions on Iranian oil sales through August, warning that Tehran will gain significant revenue it could use for malign activities before it demonstrates concrete progress on its diplomatic commitments.

On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a temporary 60-day license authorizing the production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil, lifting decades-old sanctions. The move was made in response to Tehran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow international nuclear inspectors into the country following weekend talks in Switzerland, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a claim which Iranian officials have denied.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed last week between Washington and Tehran, the U.S. agreed to authorize waivers allowing the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and related derivatives, as well as associated services such as banking transactions, insurance and transportation. 

The temporary license is set to expire on Aug. 21 and represents a historic pivot in U.S. policy. It marks the first time since Washington imposed strict energy sanctions on Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iranian oil can be legally imported into the U.S. and purchased using U.S. dollars. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action suspended certain secondary sanctions, allowing foreign companies to purchase Iranian oil, but it did not authorize imports of Iranian oil into the U.S.

Tehran has previously relied on a “shadow fleet” of aging oil tankers to move its crude abroad, funneling most of it to Chinese refineries. Under the new license, the Treasury Department said Iran may now lawfully sell oil from these previously sanctioned vessels, temporarily legitimizing that clandestine network. The waiver also shields Iranian entities, including the Central Bank of Iran, from nonnuclear sanctions tied to terrorist activity.

When asked whether the Iranians could use the profits from oil sales for malign activity, President Donald Trump said “they’re not supposed to be doing that,” and that Tehran is meant to use the income to purchase agricultural goods from the U.S. 

“We’ll see, but they’re supposed to use the money to buy food for their people,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “They’re buying it exclusively from us … all that money is coming back [to the U.S.] in the form of purchase of food … largely to our farmers.” 

Meanwhile, foreign policy experts told Jewish Insider that Iran could use the money for malign activity, also expressing concern that Tehran is receiving revenue before proving it will fulfill its long-term obligations under the deal.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what this oil revenue will be used for,” Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, told JI. “It won’t be used to benefit the Iranian people. This early concession is just further evidence of how badly the United States conceded leverage to Iran in Trump’s misguided war. We are paying dearly now just to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened.”

Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration, similarly indicated that the regime would likely use the funds in ways contrary to U.S. interests.

“Why give them the money to stabilize the regime and start rebuilding their military before they have done anything at all on their nuclear program?” Abrams asked. “Why do we just get promises while they get billions?”

Miad Maleki, a former senior Treasury official, said that the sanctions relief “could be an economic lifeline for the Islamic Republic,” in a post on X on Monday. Maleki said the move “theoretically unlocks” around 67 million barrels of oil that are stranded in the Gulf, which he estimated would be worth roughly $8-9 billion, as well as another $10-15 billion in potential relief through the sale of petrochemical tons. 

“The license explicitly allows buyers to pay Iran — including the Iranian government and blacklisted Iranian entities — directly for the oil. This isn’t just permission to sell. It’s permission to get paid,” Maleki wrote. “And the payments can be made in U.S. dollars. The dollar is the backbone of global finance, and Iran has been largely locked out of it for years. Handing the regime dollar revenue restores access that sanctions were specifically designed to deny.”

He also noted that the Treasury Department’s authorization will allow Tehran’s “shadow market” to operate “cheaper, faster, and [be] dollar-denominated.”

“While major Western and new-market buyers won’t be rushing to do business with Iran, the license authorizes far more than Iran can currently produce, and there are more than enough willing buyers in China and across Asia to absorb every barrel and petrochemical ton Iran can move,” he wrote. 

Abrams also took issue with Iran appearing to gain notable benefits without yet complying with all the U.S. demands. 

“The benefits for Iran in the MOU seem to be frontloaded,” Abrams said. “That’s a mistake because to the extent that they benefit now, they have less and less incentive to comply with what we want.”

Abrams maintained that U.S. sanctions should continue even after the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Shapiro told JI he held similar concerns, particularly regarding how Iran is securing immediate relief without any concessions on its nuclear program and noted that the agreement “doesn’t even mention Iran’s ballistic missile program or support for terrorist proxies.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, argued that the move provides Iran “upfront sanctions relief,” while simultaneously requiring “fewer concessions” than the JCPOA signed in 2015 under Obama. 

AIPAC similarly compared the agreement to the JCPOA, which the group spearheaded efforts to oppose when it was signed.“This license is broader than the terms detailed in the MOU or what was included in the JCPOA,” AIPAC wrote on X on Monday. “Waiving sanctions on production will allow Iran to increase its output and gain increased revenues under the terms of the MOU.”

Ruhe noted that such a move sidesteps mandatory congressional oversight by granting immediate waivers before lawmakers have had a chance to formally review or vote on the arrangement.

“It also runs afoul of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which prohibits any sanctions relief until Congress can review the deal,” Ruhe said. “Iran’s regime should get sanctions relief only in exchange for meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, which it has not made, and congressional review of the deal, which has not happened.”

Former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is launching the Dermer Consulting Group (DCG), a Jerusalem-based strategic advisory firm focusing on the U.S., Israel and the Middle East, Jewish Insider has learned.

Dermer, who has long been a part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle, officially departed the Israeli government in November, after twice extending his tenure. He returned earlier this year for what one official in the Prime Minister’s Office described as “reserve duty” amid the renewed fighting between Israel and Iran that began in late February.

Dermer previously served as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., leaving the posting in 2021 after eight years. He was named strategic affairs minister the following year.

Yarden Golan, who previously served as Dermer’s chief of staff, is a cofounder of the firm and will serve as managing director. Golan, who is based in New York, has his own consulting firm, Golan Consulting, and joined deep-tech investment firm Deep33 Ventures as a venture partner earlier this year.

Senators and Middle East policy experts expressed skepticism regarding President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Tuesday that Syria, rather than Israel, should handle the task of combating Hezbollah in Lebanon, following the president’s strident criticism of Israel’s attacks on the Iranian-backed terrorist group.

Trump said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains. France, that Israel’s operations in Lebanon had moved too slowly and had been “vicious.” “I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it,” Trump said.

“Syria’s a pretty complicated mess, currently,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said. “They’ve still got to deal with ISIS’ presence there and the Syrian refugees in Lebanon need to return back to Syria. I think that’s the Syria connection there.”

Lankford said that he expected the Lebanese Armed Forces to say they would address the situation in Lebanon rather than bringing Syrian forces into the country. He added that Syria’s role should be limited to repatriating Syrians to Lebanon and eliminating ISIS in Syria as stabilization measures.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) dismissed the idea outright. “I have never heard that Syria is a viable opponent of Hezbollah,” Blumenthal said. “I heard him, literally, live talk about it, and it seems almost absurd to think of Syria as a viable opponent to Hezbollah.”

He also emphasized that “Hezbollah is attacking Israel, not Syria” and “Israel has to defend itself against Hezbollah. It can’t depend on Syria. In fact — it can’t depend on anyone exclusively. It has to defend itself against Hezbollah, and that’s just a fact of life.”

He said that the “solution” to achieve peace “is to stop Iran from supporting Hezbollah.”

“What?” a bewildered Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) responded when asked by JI for his reaction to Trump’s suggestion.

“Yeah, sure,” Coons added. He then put his hands over his face and sighed before saying in an exasperated tone: “Oh my god.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) also appeared to dismiss the idea, indicating that he was confused by Trump’s comments, telling JI: “I didn’t understand that.” 

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) was largely noncommittal on the viability of Trump’s proposal, saying, “If Syria would go after Hezbollah, that would be a great thing.”

Middle East policy experts also expressed concern over Trump’s notion that Syria could play a “better” role in confronting Hezbollah than Israel, asserting that Damascus does not have the ability to take on such a task. 

“The president’s remarks unfortunately show his complete lack of familiarity with Lebanon and Syria,” Elliott Abrams, former Iran envoy under the first Trump administration, told JI. “Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976 and did not withdraw until 2005. While they dominated Lebanon they killed something like 60,000 Lebanese. To suggest the return of Syrian forces to Lebanon is absurd and would instantly be rejected by all Lebanese.”

David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, similarly criticized the statement, saying it is important to “distinguish the rhetoric from what’s realistic.”

“Syria today does not have the capability nor the will to occupy Lebanon, which is what would be necessary to dismantle Hezbollah,” Daoud said. “Their country has just emerged from a 14-year devastating civil war, they’re economically broke, they’re just starting to reintegrate into the international community.”

He said that such actions would go beyond the responsibilities that the Syrian people expect from Al-Sharaa’s new transitional government. 

“The mandate that the Syrian people have given him is ‘Rebuild our country, give us a normal life, we don’t want wars, we don’t want expansionism,’” Daoud explained. “So there’s that element. If they go too far, they end up like [former Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad.” 

Yoni Tobin, a senior policy analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the idea that Syria would be better-equipped to take on Hezbollah than Israel “is a fanciful one.”

“Israel has spent decades successfully fighting against, studying, and penetrating Hezbollah, and has eliminated thousands of its field operatives and missile sites,” Tobin said. “When’s the last time, for example, that Syria detonated several thousand Hezbollah walkie-talkies at once?”

Tobin warned that the prospect of Syrian forces entering Lebanon would be “dangerous” and could threaten U.S. and Israeli security interests. He noted that al-Sharaa’s close ties with Turkey are particularly alarming. 

“Even if Syrian forces were to somehow succeed at disarming Hezbollah, that would only replace an Iranian sphere of influence on Israel’s northern border with – yet another – Turkish one,” Tobin said. “That prospect alone should alarm Washington.” 

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro suggested that allowing Syrian forces to confront Hezbollah could “unify the Lebanese against that irresponsible proposal.”

“It recalls previous episodes of Syrian occupation, and could unleash violence across the country,” Shapiro said. “What the Syrian government can do is work to shut down smuggling networks across the porous Syrian-Lebanese border, which could deprive Hezbollah of the ability to resupply its weapons.”

Analysts also dismissed Trump’s criticism of Israeli operations in Lebanon. 

“Trump’s criticism of Israel for fighting back against Hezbollah is equally wrong,” Abrams said. “Israel’s strike killed Ali Musa Daqduq, who was a Hezbollah terrorist who led the kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in 2007. The president should be thanking Israel for that — and he should not be making light of drone strikes as ‘a minor little thing.’”

Daoud said that while individual Israeli military actions in Lebanon may have “crossed the line” and are open to criticism, he “totally disagrees” with Trump’s claim and pressure on Israel.

“I think President Trump is framing it in that way because this is undermining his desire for a deal,” Daoud said, arguing that criticism and pressure should instead be directed toward Lebanon. 

Daoud said that Hezbollah retains “massive and overwhelming” support from the Lebanese public, adding that Beirut remains “unwilling and unable to deal with Hezbollah properly.” 

“I reject this narrative that the Trump administration is trying to promote, which is that Lebanon is not the problem, Hezbollah is the problem, Hezbollah is the enemy of Lebanon,” he added. “This is fiction. I reject the nonsense that Hezbollah is an Iranian occupation of Lebanon. Hezbollah is part of the government…they are in parliament, they are Lebanese.” 

Hagar Hajjar Chemali is an American by accident — quite literally — of birth. 

Her parents left their native Lebanon in 1981 as a civil war raged in the country. Chemali’s father, Hadi, had been kidnapped by a political group, and the young couple quickly left the country once he was released, with plans to move to Milan. While visiting friends in Greenwich, Conn., Chemali’s mother, Mirella, began experiencing pregnancy complications and chose to wait out the final months of her pregnancy there. Soon after, Chemali was born, followed quickly by a son. The family never left.

So began Chemali’s American story, the result of a potent combination of determination and coincidence. That’s the story of Chemali’s professional journey, too: a mix of persistence and being in the right place at the right time. She spent the first decade of her career helping steer U.S. foreign policy on the Middle East in the Bush and Obama administrations, ultimately becoming the spokesperson for former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. She spent the next decade as a consultant and communications expert, appearing regularly on cable news and a YouTube channel where she produces an occasionally satirical show explaining American foreign policy. 

Now Chemali, 44, faces her biggest and most personal assignment yet: creating an unofficial backchannel to boost the ongoing peace talks between Lebanon and Israel, the first time that officials from the two countries have sat for direct talks since 1983. And Chemali, who is half Jewish and half Christian, thinks she has a shot at helping break through the deep sectarianism that has led to distrust both within Lebanon and towards Israel.

The deal between the U.S. and Iran that was announced on Sunday may complicate Chemali’s efforts. Iran’s attempt to link its own negotiations with the U.S. to developments in Lebanon could potentially complicate efforts to advance Israeli-Lebanese peace, and Iranian state media said on Sunday that Lebanon would be part of the new deal. Details remain scarce.

“It’s about the art of the possible. Lebanese-Israeli peace is not particularly easy to achieve,” said Daniel Glaser, a former assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes. He hired Chemali for her first job at the Treasury Department. “What’s going to get it done is the ability to understand what’s possible, and how to get to that possible within the U.S. system, within Israel and the Israeli system, within Lebanon and the infinitely complicated Lebanese system. There’s not a lot of people that have the ability to do that more than Hagar.” 

In April, she announced the creation of an organization called LIPA, the Lebanon-Israel Peace Alliance. It’s a vessel for advocacy by Chemali and a cadre of Israeli, Lebanese and American foreign policy experts she colloquially describes as the “peace crew” — many do not yet want to publicize their involvement with the effort — who are working to keep the pressure on the U.S. government to help broker a deal between Lebanon and Israel. 

The group has been collaborating since early last year, soon after Israel and Lebanon reached a ceasefire in late 2024 that ended the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that began when the Iranian-backed group launched missiles at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. The effort gained traction amid a broader shift in Lebanon: Hezbollah was weakened by the death of its longtime leader, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun moved to reassert state authority over Hezbollah’s power and influence. 

“She was one of the very first people that said to me that I should go for peace,” said Morgan Ortagus, who served as deputy Middle East special envoy at the beginning of the Trump administration. Ortagus and Chemali have been friends since they worked in the Treasury Department together nearly 20 years ago. “I said, ‘Really, do you think they’re ready?’ And she was emphatic that she thought that it was the time to go for peace.”

The work of Chemali’s burgeoning “peace crew” solidified in March, at a dinner soon after the Iran war started. The geopolitical time crunch of a fast-moving war spurred the group to come up with a name to formalize the informal diplomacy they had been pursuing for more than a year.

“All this work actually helped bring the Israelis and the Lebanese governments to hold direct talks in Washington,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow studying Lebanon at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I don’t think this would have been possible without the whole year of work on the narrative and the policy and the recommendations and the shift on the ground, that this is where Lebanon and Israel finally decided, ‘Let’s do this.’”

After the U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in early April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would open direct negotiations with Lebanon. It was the moment for which Chemali had yearned for over 18 months — or, perhaps, a whole lifetime. In the aftermath of the first round of talks, LIPA was launched in the way so many projects are: via a somewhat haphazard post on X. Chemali did not want to lose her chance at creating momentum for a window for peace that might soon close. She has not returned to Lebanon in 15 years due to security risks. 

“As a comms person, I would never advise a rollout this way. This is like the opposite of what you do before a rollout. You have all your ducks in a row when you roll anything out,” Chemali told Jewish Insider in a recent interview at a Washington cafe. “We wanted to come out there and be like, we have an organization that exists that is there to support this process.”

For Chemali, the effort is a culmination of her own professional arc, as well as the choices her parents made in building a life here. Her family might be Lebanese, but this effort is all-American — something she can do because of where she was born and the circumstances that allowed her to rise to a public, senior government role without having to worry about the strict sectarian divisions that govern Lebanese society and the country’s government. 

But there was a piece of Chemali’s story that was missing, something that now makes her uniquely positioned to serve as a convener of Lebanese and Israelis here in the U.S. 

“She’s half-Jewish and half-Christian,” said Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a Lebanese-Iraqi researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “She has the highest pedigree for someone to be working on this issue.”

Chemali did not know about her Jewish roots when she was growing up. Her father is a Maronite Christian, a Catholic sect with deep roots in the Levant. The family attended a nondenominational church in Connecticut. When Chemali was 11 or 12, her mother revealed a secret she had kept since her children were born: She was Jewish. 

“I think she just couldn’t take it anymore. She was just like, ‘Actually, I’m Jewish,’” Chemali recalled. “My brother and me, being raised in the United States, we were like, ‘That is so cool. Does that mean we get Hanukkah gifts?’” 

Her mother, Mirella, grew up in Wadi Abu Jamil, Beirut’s Jewish neighborhood. She attended a Catholic school at the urging of the family of her late father. The nuns at her school would tell Mirella that “she had evil in her blood because she was Jewish,” according to Chemali. “So [her family] practiced Judaism in secret at home.”

The revelation from her mother intrigued Chemali. Why didn’t she tell them sooner? Mostly Chemali ignored it, until she came to Washington during the George W. Bush administration. She joined the Treasury Department in 2006, in the newly created Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, where many of her colleagues were Jewish. They started inviting her to Shabbat dinners and Jewish holidays. Chemali learned more about Judaism, and began to feel proud of that part of her identity. When she moved back to Greenwich, she asked her mom to teach her more about her family’s traditions.

“I told my mom, ‘These traditions die with you. You didn’t raise me with these traditions. I only know what I know from books and from going with friends to their houses for events,’” Chemali said. So her mom bought a menorah, and they lit candles together for Hanukkah. 

“She starts singing in Hebrew, and I was like, ‘Who is this woman who sings in Hebrew?’ As far as I knew, she speaks a lot of languages — actually, she speaks five languages — but Hebrew was not one of them,” said Chemali. 

Chemali has not abandoned the Christian faith she was raised with, even as she grapples with her identity.

“What I tell people of where I am at the moment, but it is always an evolution, is that I am of Christian faith and feel very much a Jew,” said Chemali. “I always tell people I’m a member of every tribe.”

Lebanon is so beset by tribal division that different government positions are reserved for people from different religious sects: the president is required to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament is a Shia Muslim. Chemali has refused to diminish any part of her identity, even as her home country all but demands she pick a side. 

“She’s someone who can actually speak to everyone. She’s not there to take sides,” said Ghaddar. “She really sees the whole picture, and I think that’s what this kind of initiative really needs. It’s someone who has a stake in everyone and everything.”

Chemali retains the idealism that so many lose after decades in Washington. She described herself as a “Lebanese Zionist,” a position she said she has stuck by even amid the polarization that crept into her family after Oct. 7.

“This is the thing that sets me apart from the rest of my family. There’s a chunk of my family that unfriended me on social media after Oct. 7 because of my statements — and by the way, my statements are not like, ‘Yeah, go into Gaza and get ‘em.’ That’s not what I’m saying. My statements were more posting about the hostages,” said Chemali. “There’s one chunk of my family from Syria on my dad’s side that, straight up, they will lecture me at any opportunity they have. I view them as brainwashed, to be perfectly honest, and they probably view me as brainwashed.”

Chemali recalled a trip to Lebanon during her time as the National Security Council’s director for Lebanon and Syria in the Obama administration. A Lebanese friend advised her not to share that she’s Jewish. 

“I was like, ‘Look, that’s not how I operate,’” said Chemali. “First, I really make sure religion doesn’t come up in my government work, because I don’t want anyone ever accusing me of seeing something through a religious lens. But secondly, if it comes up, I don’t hide. That’s not how I roll, ever.” 

Still, she understands that not everyone can be as visible as she is. Chemali gave up her Lebanese citizenship before entering the U.S. government, but ordinary Lebanese people face steep prison sentences simply for talking to Israelis because of the country’s anti-normalization laws. Free from these restrictions, Chemali has recently taken to setting up discreet dinners between Lebanese and Israelis in Washington.

“We are trying to come up with creative ways to work around these laws,” she said. “We have to pick locations where nobody will see them or recognize them, so it makes it much more difficult.”

One of LIPA’s priorities is urging the U.S. to pressure Lebanon to repeal those laws. Chemali holds meetings with members of Congress on both the left and right. She talks to contacts at the State and Treasury Departments regularly, advocating for new sanctions on Hezbollah. She’s a fixture in Foggy Bottom and at wonky Middle East conferences, on cable news and in cafes, all from her home base in Connecticut.

“The ideal is a warm peace where you have thriving business relations, and that’s how our efforts are geared, toward that vision,” said Chemali. “That will hopefully undermine Hezbollah’s presence.”

After a new round of talks early this month, the governments of Lebanon, Israel and the U.S. released a joint statement in which Lebanon’s army agreed to create “pilot zones” where it will exert control and ban Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that uses southern Lebanon as a base to attack Israel. The diplomats will meet again later this month, and military representatives from each country will hold their own parallel track. The talks are testing the Lebanese government’s appetite for taking a stand against the militia. Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade blows even as the talks proceed. 

That negotiations are happening at all reflects unprecedented discontent within Lebanon toward Hezbollah. Until now, Lebanon’s leaders have been unable or unwilling to exert the strength needed to push back on Hezbollah’s grip over the country’s politics. Earlier this month, Aoun, the country’s president, took the unusual step of criticizing Iran, Hezbollah’s primary backer: “It’s not your country, it’s our country,” he told CNN.  

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro called the peace talks a “tremendous opportunity” for both countries.

“Maybe more for Lebanon than for Israel, because it really would mean breaking free from the handcuffs of Hezbollah and Iran,” said Shapiro. He hired Chemali for her job at the Obama White House and said he is encouraged by her efforts with LIPA. 

“Having a strong advocacy body in the United States perhaps buttressed by those in Europe and elsewhere in the region is important fuel to that process,” said Shapiro. “She’s got just endless energy and creativity and a real commitment.”

The biggest challenge is that Lebanon’s leadership does not control Hezbollah. Peace between Israel and Lebanon would still be momentous even without dealing with Hezbollah, but it would leave the most intractable issue unresolved.

“It’s not the elephant in the room, because they all talk about it. But the crux of this is Hezbollah and Hezbollah’s weapons, and it’s not just the disarmament of them, it’s ensuring that they’re never able to rearm again,” said Chemali.

Washington is easily distracted; Trump is no exception. For Chemali, who is not directly involved in the talks, perhaps the most urgent task is to make sure the people in the room do not move on. She needs to remind them that the Lebanon-Israel file remains important, and worth pursuing — and that it should not be subsumed up by negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

“We keep our fingers crossed, we advocate, we speak up, publish op-eds, you name it. Go on interviews, whatever it takes, just to make sure that things keep on going in the peace direction,” said FDD’s Abdul-Hussain, who is friends with Chemali but is not formally collaborating with her. “People like us, who are not governments, who are just regular people, we have a bigger margin. We have a lot of freedom to move. We have a lot of freedom to explain things, or to oppose things.” 

But even in the perpetually explosive Middle East, where the talks could easily fall apart, Chemali believes something fundamental has changed. 

“No matter what happens with the talks, there’s a reason I have hope,” she said. “Because you see this taboo in Lebanon has broken.”

Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace, suggested on Thursday that normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel was not a top priority for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, citing security concerns and his focus on ensuring he becomes king.

Ortagus made the comments while participating in an event at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at FDD, discussing his book, The Arab Case for Israel: And Other Essays from a Distant Conflict, for which Ortagus wrote the forward.

Ortagus served under White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff before joining the U.S. mission to the United Nations as a senior advisor last June. She quietly departed the Trump administration in February of this year.

Ortagus said that the Saudi crown prince’s top priority is becoming king and ensuring a peaceful transition from his father, King Salman, explaining that conversations about Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel should be viewed through that lens. 

“When you look at it from the lens of MBS, everybody is a politician of some sort. What’s the most important thing that he has to do in the next few years? Actually become king,” Ortagus said. “Does getting a deal with Israel help him become king or not? Does it help that peaceful transition?” 

“He got there in a very interesting manner and took out a lot of his family members in order to get where he is, but he still has that hurdle of becoming king and getting through the Shura Council and having that peaceful transition,” she continued. “I think, as for most politicians around the world, certainly here in America, that transition is more important to him than a peace deal in Israel.”

Following publication of this story, a representative for Ortagus reached out to note that her comments were not a suggestion that Saudi-Israeli normalization was unlikely and that she believes “a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel will happen under the Trump administration.” They added that her comments “were meant to explain why it’s hard and will take time, not to question whether it happens.”

Evangelical leader Mike Evans recently claimed that the crown prince told him that he was prepared to recognize Israel but for the opposition of his father. Saudi officials have publicly rejected the idea of normalization without a path to a Palestinian state.

Abdul-Hussain noted that he had broadly been supportive of MBS’ approach to regional security and economic issues since rising to power in 2015, but criticized what he described as a pivot on the issue of normalization with Israel. He said that he did not know the reason for the shift by the Saudis, but surmised that economic factors were at play.

While Ortagus concurred that economic issues did play a role, she argued that security concerns after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel prompted the crown prince’s reversal. 

“The threats to MBS and to the king and to the whole government in Saudi Arabia went up exponentially after Oct. 7,” Ortagus said. “It was very low before, so I think it’s also very much a security situation.”

Turning to the possibility of Israel and Lebanon normalizing ties and working together to disarm Hezbollah, Ortagus and Abdul-Hussain expressed doubt that the warnings from senior Lebanese officials of a possible civil war if Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese Armed Forces’ decision to keep Gen. Rodolphe Haykal in charge of the LAF — despite Haykal being sympathetic to Hezbollah — were obstacles to reaching a deal.

“I think it comes down to the capabilities, not just the capabilities of the LAF, but the institutional will to actually do the disarmament of Hezbollah, which just fundamentally is not there,” Ortagus said.

Abdul-Hussain shared Ortagus’ skepticism about the Lebanese government’s commitment to reaching a deal.

“Knowing Lebanese politicians, I expect President [Joseph] Aoun to run for the exit. He’s thinking, ‘Well, if they’re talking to Hezbollah too, then talking to me doesn’t mean much,’” Abdul-Hussain said of the Lebanese president. “I think we in this town are not really resolved on which direction we’re going, and I want us to go in the direction of: We will not do the ceasefire the way Hezbollah wants it to be.”

Both Abdul-Hussain and Ortagus rejected the idea that Israel and Lebanon could successfully normalize relations without Hezbollah being disarmed. Ortagus also said that all parties involved in the U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and Lebanon “have to do a better job of making the argument, specifically to the Shia from the south … that you will have a better life” if the two countries normalize relations and disarm Hezbollah.

Ortagus and her partner, Antoun Sehanaoui, a Lebanese banker and producer, also hosted a book party in Georgetown for Abdul-Hussain on Thursday evening, where she praised Abdul-Husain and Sehanaoui for speaking out in favor of peace with Israel, a stance she said puts their lives, livelihoods and families in Lebanon at risk.

Abdul-Husain said his book came about through his own personal story, growing up in a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon and being educated that Israel was evil and aimed to conquer Lebanon. But he said that as he learned Hebrew and came to understand Israel and its true goals, his views continued to evolve, “until I reached the point I thought what they had taught us was not really correct.”

“I came up with my own ideas, and I thought that Israel is a successful story, whether we like it or not, whether we think it caused us injustice or not, it’s still a successful story,” Abdul-Hussain said. “If you are Arab or Palestinian, and you think that Israel caused you injustice, or is still causing you injustice, then moving on and forgetting about and taking this injustice is much more to your interest than trying to wind the clock back to a time when Israel did not exist and start building from there.”

He said that evidence shows that the stronger the relations an Arab state has with Israel, the more successful it is, economically and otherwise.

On Iran, at the FDD event, Ortagus argued that the U.S. is winning the war despite it still being unfinished more than 100 days since its launch, citing Iran’s heavily degraded military capabilities and what she described as the weak status of the current regime. 

“Nothing about war now is easy and simple. No one’s going on a ship anymore to sign a declaration of the end of the war, it’s just not how it happens,” Ortagus said. “So you have to look at the president’s and the administration’s goals, and as much as people like to critique every single thing this president and administration does, he is the only president in 47 years of the Islamic Republic to be willing to take kinetic action in order to coerce the regime back to the negotiating table.”

“His negotiators, by the way, should be able to get a great deal because of the amount of leverage that he’s given them. The president talks about this all the time. He talks about what he’s done to destroy their nuclear facilities, their military capabilities, their Navy, their Air Force. We fly with impunity over their skies,” she continued. “To everyone sort of prognosticating that this has somehow been a failure. Look at the metrics, look at the facts, look at the capabilities, look at the regime strength today and look at their economy. … I just think it’s a matter of time before this regime falls.”

She suggested that the mass pro-democracy protests in Iran earlier this year forced President Donald Trump to expedite his plans to target the regime and what remains of its nuclear program while defending the extended length of the conflict.”

“All of these protestations by Europeans and other feckless individuals who never get in the fight are wrong,” Ortagus said. “Obviously, I think, we had a moment of opportunity after the protest earlier this year where we had to decide on action probably a little bit earlier than we had planned on, because it was the moment when we, when the president clearly told the people of Iran, the protesters that we were going to stand by them, and that help is on the way, so help had to get on the way.”

Ortagus described the president as “the leading hawk at the White House,” saying he “has fundamentally understood this issue since his very first campaign in 2016, of how destabilizing it would be for the region if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon. He set red lines for himself and said it will never happen on my watch, and I think he very much understands that any deal cannot be like the JCPOA [the 2015 nuclear deal] has to make sure that they can’t actually obtain a nuclear weapon. I think he’s very clear on that, and I know that his negotiators are.”

Ortagus said she believed both the president and U.S. negotiators are of the view that not reaching a deal with Iran, because the regime would not make necessary concessions, “is somewhat better than a bad deal.”

She suggested that the White House was also aware of the logistical hurdles involved in getting any agreement approved by the Senate, warning that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will not vote to approve a deal that does not address key concerns about the regime, its terror financing network and its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“Anybody who’s not a freshman senator was around during JCPOA, and Republican senators have been very on the record for what they would accept in any deal with Iran, certainly even during the Biden years,” Ortagus said. “Republican senators are going to get a say in whatever the final deal looks like. The beauty of our democracy is this comes down to not only what the president is willing to sign, and I happen to think that he’s one of the most hawkish people in the room on this issue, it also comes down to what the U.S. Senate and what Republicans in the Senate are going to abide by.”

This story was updated on June 12 to reflect clarifications from Ortagus’ representative about her comments on Saudi-Israel normalization.

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Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

After the U.S. conducted strikes yesterday in Iran, President Donald Trump said from the Oval Office this morning that the U.S. would “hit them hard again today” and told Fox News that he may target Iranian power plants and bridges because Tehran is “tapping the United States along” in negotiations.

As Trump convened his national security team in Washington this afternoon to discuss military options, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters CENTCOM will be “busy tonight” with “bombs dropping on key facilities in Iran”…

Trump also revealed today that he directed the U.S. military last month to “execute a secret mission” to assist oil tankers and other commercial vessels in transiting the Strait of Hormuz, an effort that “has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil” and over 200 commercial ships moving through the waterway. His Truth Social post was a clarification of earlier comments that seemed to suggest the U.S. was stealing this oil directly out of Iran; U.S. operations to facilitate passage in the strait have been previously reported…

Trump provided Fox News with new details of the downing of the U.S. Army helicopter earlier this week, describing how an Iranian drone became lodged between the two pilots in the cockpit who guided the helicopter into the sea, where they were rescued “for the first time in U.S. military history” by an unmanned sea drone…

Qatari mediators visited Tehran today in the hopes of pushing Iranian officials to engage more effectively in negotiations with the U.S., Axios reports, after Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with their intransigence over the last two weeks, even as he continued to signal the two sides were approaching a deal…

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz met with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, the highest-level U.S. official to publicly visit the Gulf since the Iran war began…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an “antisemitic dictator” today after Erdoğan condemned Israel’s “network of murder” in Syria and Lebanon and threatened a “very clear and strong response” if Turkish interests in the region were jeopardized. Netanyahu said Erdoğan, whom he accused of supporting Hamas, lacks the moral authority to criticize Israel.

Trump, when asked in the Oval Office about the potential for war between Israel and Turkey, described Erdoğan as a “hell of a leader” and said, “I don’t think that will happen as long as I’m president”…

More than 20 countries, including the U.S., issued a joint statement condemning “lethal plotting and malign actions” by Iran’s security forces working with international and local criminal groups in Europe, North America and Australia, including their efforts to target “Iranian dissidents, journalists and Jewish and Israeli communities and interests”…

The Department of Justice indicted eight individuals associated with the University of Michigan for allegedly threatening university leaders, law enforcement, businesses and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit over the conspirators’ perception of their “purported financial support of Israel.”

The individuals “discussed methods by which to harm the targets and their families, including poison, bombs, and psychological torture,” engaged in extensive vandalism and threw jars filled with noxious chemicals into homes, according to the department…

An immigration judge ordered earlier this month that Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi be deported to Jordan, after a lengthy legal battle in which the Trump administration claimed Mahdawi has been involved in and supported terrorist violence. Mahdawi, who has not been charged with a crime, is still seeking review of his removal proceedings in federal court…

The Senate Education and Natural Resources Committee advanced the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons (HEAL) Act by a voice vote…

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, in a memo to donors, acknowledged that the “political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging” for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to retain her seat against scandal-plagued challenger Graham Platnerand called it a “fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win”…

Trump offered Collins his backing today after having long been at odds with the senator: Asked if she has his full endorsement, Trump said, “She does, because she’s a sane woman. She’s not my best friend at all … but she’s a sane person and she’s a respected person.” He called Platner a “thug,” a “phony” and a “bad person”…

Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to President Joe Biden, defended Platner’s tattoo of a Nazi symbol in a comment responding to the Republican Jewish Coalition on Instagram, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports: Klain claimed the Totenkopf “was a skull and crossbones to remember [Platner’s] fallen comrades from his service in Afghanistan,” an explanation Platner’s campaign has not previously offered…

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, running against Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in the 10th Congressional District, denied to JI’s Will Bredderman that he’s backing Darializa Avila Chevalier in her race against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) — even as the two appeared together in an ad paid for jointly by both of their campaigns…

Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg, running in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th District, came out yesterday in support of the Block the Bombs Act, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports, despite having previously expressed skepticism about the bill seeking to broadly restrict weapons sales to Israel…

Meanwhile, Public First Action, the PAC linked to AI giant Anthropic, is spending $1.2 million on a Knicks-themed ad in support of Schlossberg’s opponent, Alex Bores, who has become a leading advocate for AI regulation on the campaign trail. The ad is set to air tonight during Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Politico reports…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at the state of play in Israel’s elections, taking place this fall.

The House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee will hold a closed-door markup of the 2027 defense spending bill.

Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) will speak at a Progressive Policy Institute event on “Working Toward a New Era of Patriotism and Democratic Renewal” at the National Press Club in Washington.

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SIDESTEPPING QUESTIONS

Senior House Democrats profess ignorance of Hamawy’s controversial past

House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Greg Meeks said of the Democratic N.J. congressional nominee, ‘I don’t like to talk about somebody I don’t know’

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LASHING OUT

Micah Lasher says he’s ‘exhausted’ by political ‘obsession’ with Israel

The Democratic congressional hopeful aired his frustration when asked about his stance regarding U.S. aid to the Jewish state at a candidate forum

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This P.M. edition 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 announced today that Iran was responsible for downing a U.S. Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz last night, and vowed to respond out “of necessity.” Trump had reportedly told aides his “red line” for resuming military action would be if Iran killed any more Americans, though he confirmed in his post on Truth Social that both American pilots involved were “safe and uninjured.”

Later, however, in a call with The Wall Street Journal, Trump appeared to downplay the incident, saying it “wasn’t a big deal” and that “the pilot is fine”…

---

Top GOP lawmakers echoed Trump’s initial assessment that the U.S. must respond: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea that Iran should face “significant consequences.” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, similarly said the U.S. must “vigorously respond,” and Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) pushed for “decisive action”…

---

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled that Tehran is distancing itself from the episodeand not claiming it as a direct attack on the U.S. He said in a statement, “Foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire. To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave”…

---

Trump, speaking to ABC News, openly mused about whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “even wants to continue” and run in Israel’s upcoming elections, slated to take place this fall. “He’s a wartime prime minister. We will very shortly win the war one way or the other, and you know he’s a wartime prime minister,” Trump said…

---

A gunman from Lebanon entered Israeli territory and fired on IDF troops, who killed him before he crossed the border fence, the IDF said. The infiltration set off a widespread search for potential accomplices, though none were found…

---

Before the latest round of missile fire between Israel and Iran, U.S. and Iranian negotiators had focused their discussions on four major elements of a nuclear deal, officials told The New York Times, even as the Trump administration has said nuclear issues will be discussed in a subsequent round of negotiations.

The key points reportedly include how long Iran will suspend uranium enrichment, diluting the country’s stockpile of already enriched uranium, dismantling three of its major nuclear facilities and “snap” inspections of all relevant sites inside the country…

---

A new survey from the Israel Democracy Institute found the share of Israelis who believe the country’s security is a primary consideration for Trump has plummeted to 44%, down from 60% who said the same in March at the beginning of the Iran war, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.

It’s the lowest level of Israeli trust in Trump since the institute began tracking the metric when he was elected to a second term in November 2024, coming as Washington and Jerusalem seemingly diverge on their strategies and ultimate goals of the war with Iran…

---

Twenty-one countries issued a joint statement urging Israel not to implement a new law requiring international NGOs wanting to operate in the West Bank and Gaza to register with and be vetted by the Israeli government, calling the law “part of a broader pattern of restrictive measures” that “constrain the urgently needed humanitarian response.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the concerns and claims of the countries as “completely unfounded and detached from reality” as it said there are “immense amounts of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip”…

---

Randy Villegas, a left-wing Democrat running to unseat Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) in California, claimed victory today in the jungle primary over Jasmeet Bains, a moderate Democrat who had been favored by pro-Israel leaders as well as the party’s national leadership, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports. Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC had spent heavily to help Bains with a $500,000 TV ad buy opposing Villegas…

---

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is spending $2 million on an initial ad buy this week to boost Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, a UDP spokesperson confirmed to JI’s Matthew Kassel. The ad touts Stevens’ record fighting for the auto industry, opposing Medicare cuts and working to cap insulin prices in Congress…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out for timely analysis of today’s primary election results in Maine, Nevada and South Carolina from Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar — premium JI subscribers like you will receive it first.

---

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee will hold a markup of the HEAL Act, a bipartisan bill examining Holocaust education efforts across the country.

---

The Culture for Peace Institute will hold a conference in Washington with speakers including State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun; Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK); and Reps. Nick LaLota (R-NY), Randy Fine (R-FL), Andy Barr (R-KY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Max Miller (R-OH), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Derrick Van Orden (R-WI).

---

Elsewhere in Washington, Iran International will hold a town hall focused on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iran, featuring the Middle East Institute’s David Hale and Alex Vatanka as well as Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

---

In the evening, lawmakers will take the field for the annual Congressional Baseball Game at Nationals Park.

---

In New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations will hold its annual antisemitism convening, bringing together communal professionals, experts and others to discuss efforts to combat antisemitism.

---

New York state Assemblymember Claire Valdez, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and City Councilmember Julie Won — the top Democratic candidates for New York’s 7th Congressional District to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) — will face off for a debate on local news channel PIX11.

---

The Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation will honor New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, former Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot and Gazan human rights lawyer Moumen Al-Natour at its gala in Manhattan.

Stories You May Have Missed

MOUNTING SCRUTINY

Will Avila Chevalier’s ‘beyond the pale’ views sink the DSA challenger’s campaign against Espaillat?

Avila Chevalier has a long record of extreme views, including calling for the abolition of police, voicing pro-Russia sentiment and rejecting Israel’s existence

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SPECTATOR SPECTACLE

A who’s who of notables packed Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals

Trump, Mamdani, Witkoff, Kraft, Lutnick and more watched the game

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PRESENTED BY

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Middle East experts about the dynamic between the U.S. and Israel on strategy in the region as President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu diverge on how to address Iran and its proxies, and have the scoop on the newest additions to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We report on the who’s who of notables at last night’s NBA Finals game in New York, and talk to friends and colleagues of Tisch family matriarch Billie Tisch, who died on Sunday. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sam Bankman-Fried, Ms. Rachel and Dan Loeb.

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

• Voters in Maine head to the polls today to cast their ballots in the state’s primary races, including the Democratic primary for Senate, where embattled oyster farmer Graham Platner is expected to win the nomination following Gov. Janet Mills’ suspension of her campaign earlier this spring. We’ll be watching the margin by which Platner, who has been dogged by a series of scandals ranging from a Nazi tattoo to comments supporting Hamas tactics to past volatile romantic relationships, wins tonight — which will indicate his strength going into the general election against one of the Senate’s most moderate Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
• We’ll also be keeping an eye on primaries in Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina.
• In the Middle East, Lebanese media reported Israeli airstrikes near Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday morning after the IDF issued an evacuation order to residents of the city. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that, though Israel is “holding its fire” against Iran, Jerusalem has “a full right to self-defense” and is “exercising it to the extent necessary.” Two Israeli sources told CNN that Jerusalem planned to continue its operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
• The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center. The hearing comes two months after the Department of Justice charged the group with fraud in connection with now-defunct efforts to spend upwards of $3 million to pay informants at extremist groups.
• The House Appropriations Committee is holding markups this morning on the 2027 budgets for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor.
• Elsewhere in Washington, Chabad-Lubavitch’s Living Legacy International Conference, which kicked off last night, resumes this morning with a congressional leadership breakfast followed by events at the Library of Congress, a luncheon at the State Department, a roundtable with Jewish leaders from around the world this afternoon and a gala dinner in the evening.
• Agudath Israel of America is holding a dinner to dedicate its new Washington office and pay tribute to Rabbi Abba Cohen, the longtime head of the group’s DC operations.
• The Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum kicks off today in Washington. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Alan Armstrong (R-OK); Reps. Ami Bera (D-CA), Young Kim (R-CA); Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Development Finance Corporation CEO Ben Black and TWG Global’s Amos Hochstein are slated to speak at the two-day gathering.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WAR AND PEACE

Experts warn Trump’s attempts to restrain Israel undermine leverage in Iran talks

Middle East experts warned on Monday that the Trump administration’s attempts to prevent Israel’s military retaliation against Iran and its pursuit of a swift diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran are exposing a fundamental breakdown in strategic alignment between Washington and Jerusalem. This dynamic is actively undermining American leverage and hardening Tehran’s resolve both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield, the analysts argued, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

Trump and Tehran: Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, Amb. Eric Edelman, a distinguished fellow at JINSA and former White House official, said that the president’s behavior makes the U.S. appear “desperate for a deal.” Ari Cicurel, an assistant director of foreign policy at JINSA, agreed that the administration’s apparent urgency to reach a deal removes vital military deterrence to back up U.S. diplomacy. “The president has signaled that he is highly prioritizing reaching some deal, and is willing to restrain Israel in order to do that,” Cicurel told JI.

Read the full story here.

On the Hill: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Monday that he would support President Donald Trump abandoning diplomatic talks with Iran and resuming military operations, JI’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report. 

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MOUNTING SCRUTINY

Will Avila Chevalier’s ‘beyond the pale’ views sink the DSA challenger’s campaign against Espaillat?

As Darializa Avila Chevalier mounts an insurgent campaign against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) in Upper Manhattan, the democratic socialist has faced mounting scrutiny over past controversial posts that have surfaced in recent days, raising questions about whether the negative publicity will blunt her chances in the June 23 primary election. Some strategists suggested that her incendiary views could get overlooked amid a national political landscape favoring extreme, anti-establishment sentiments now fueling the rise of several far-left candidates in Democratic primaries around the country, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Sign of the times: “It seems to not matter in a way that it would have been a deal-breaker 15 or 20 years ago,” Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist in New York City who is not involved in the primary, told JI on Monday. “This race feels like our new outlier, where some of the things she’s said are so far beyond the pale.”

Read the full story here.

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SCOOP

Controversial influencer Ms. Rachel set to be hosted by Congressional Dads Caucus

The Congressional Dads Caucus is hosting children’s influencer Rachel Griffin-Accurso, better known as Ms. Rachel, as a featured guest at a reception in Washington on Tuesday, according to an invitation obtained by Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. Griffin-Accurso has faced scrutiny and criticism over antisemitic activity and for hosting a pro-Hamas Palestinian journalist on her social media accounts.

Background: Griffin-Accurso is one of 10 “special guests,” including “leaders, advocates, creators, entertainers, and changemakers who are helping redefine fatherhood and caregiving in America,” at the Tuesday reception. The reception is co-hosted by the Dads Caucus, founded by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), to advocate for policies including childcare affordability and accessibility, paid family leave and the child tax credit, ahead of the group’s Dad Ambassador Awards. The event is co-hosted by Equimundo, which describes itself as a nonprofit focused on promoting gender equality and preventing violence.

Read the full story here.

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SCOOP

Democrats to name Reps. Bell, Wasserman Schultz and Pocan to Foreign Affairs Committee

House Democrats are set to name Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod has learned.

Lineup changes: Bell and Wasserman Schultz are both strong supporters of Israel, while Pocan is an outspoken critic, joining a panel that features outspoken voices on both sides of the Israel policy debate. None of the three offices responded to requests for comment. Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a Jewish Republican and strong supporter of Israel, also recently joined the panel.

Read the full story here.

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SPECTATOR SPECTACLE

A who’s who of notables packed Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Boris Epshteyn, the personal attorney to President Donald Trump, joined the president in a luxury suite at Madison Square Garden on Monday night for Game 3 of the NBA Finals, where the Knicks lost to the San Antonio Spurs on home turf, 115-111, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.

Spotted: Courtside, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sat with his wife, Allison, across the aisle from rappers Fat Joe and DJ Khaled. Elsewhere at MSG, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, TKO Group CEO Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, Larry David, David Zaslav and Robert Kraft were seated courtside for the game. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also sat courtside — and found himself face-to-face with Jose Alvarado as the Knicks guard crashed into spectators while trying to save the ball from going out of bounds.

Read the full story here.

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‘SMARTEST, NICEST PERSON IN THE ROOM’

Colleagues mourn philanthropist Wilma ‘Billie’ Tisch

When Louise Greilsheimer thinks about Billie Tisch, she thinks about the way a room felt after she left it. “When you walked in a room, she didn’t strike you,” Greilsheimer told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim, “but when you left, you knew that she was probably the smartest and nicest person in the room.” Tisch — a billionaire philanthropist, matriarch of one of New York’s most prominent Jewish families and the first woman ever elected president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York — died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 98.

Legacy: Tisch was the last surviving member of her family’s original quartet of philanthropists, whose combined legacy is reflected in a wide range of educational, cultural and medical institutions carrying the Tisch name, and in decades of sustained support for Jewish organizations throughout New York City.

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

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Worthy Reads

High Seas Hostage Diplomacy: For CNN, Brett McGurk, who served as the White House’s coordinator for the Middle East in the Biden administration, posits that Iran is applying the same tactics to negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz as it did to talks over hostages held in the Islamic Republic. “For Iran, [holding the Strait] is possession. It now has something the US (and for that matter, the rest of the world) wants. And it will not give it up unless and until America pays an exorbitant price. In Tehran’s eyes, the strait has now become the most valuable hostage it has ever possessed. … The question in Washington is when a deal might be concluded following exchanges of texts through mediators. The question in Tehran is simply whether Trump will pay the price they are demanding. It’s the classic dynamic of a hostage negotiation.” [CNN]

Broad Daylight: The Financial Times explores the divide between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based pollster and political analyst, said there was also an element of ‘political theatre’ to the public disagreements. ‘Trump is basically trying to show the American public that he’s trying to keep the war from re-escalating and he’s trying to keep America from getting involved again,’ she said. ‘And Netanyahu looks good to his domestic audience because he’s defying Trump.’” [FT]

Boycotts and Battlefields: In The Washington Post, Aaron Kaplowitz, president of the United States-Israel Business Alliance, argues that efforts to boycott Israeli defense technology, as some European countries have done on the basis of “moral leadership,” risks forgoing technology that is effective on the battlefield. “According to defense officials, governments that have announced boycotts on Israeli weapons makers are placing orders anyway. That is what governing by perception looks like: Speeches for the activist base. Procurement contracts in the back office. European defense ministries understand what they cannot say in public. Israeli systems are battle-tested in real time against adaptive enemies, and there are not many alternatives that perform as well. The defense systems a nation procures depends on what has the best capabilities.” [WashPost]

Word on the Street

Vice President JD Vance was asked by Fox News host Jesse Watters about reports that Israel was spying on the U.S. and engaging in military operations in Lebanon, responding that “The Israelis and I, the Israelis and the United States, we have a lot of shared interests, but we also have some situations where our interests diverge. While Israel obviously has objectives it has, the U.S. main objective in Iran is that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon… We’ve created this space necessary where the president believes, and I think he’s right, that we can get the long-term settlement to an Iran nuclear deal. Israel may like that, they may not like that… this is in the best interest of the United States of America”…

President Donald Trump nominated Todd Blanche to be attorney general; Blanche has been serving in the role in an acting capacity since former AG Pam Bondi departed the position in April…

A State Department report submitted to Congress last month accuses Russia, Iran and China of weaponizing antisemitic imagery and rhetoric “across physical and cyber domains”…

Two crew members of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter were rescued after it went down in the Strait of Hormuz; the cause of the helicopter’s downing remains under investigation…

Thirty-eight Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), demanded the administration provide Congress with the legal opinion backing its determination that U.S. hostilities against Iran have ended, given the ongoing strikes and U.S. presence in the region…

By voice votes, the House passed legislation requiring the Trump administration to determine whether various Iranian clerics, and other Iranian entities meet the standards to face U.S. sanctions, and requiring the State Department to brief Congress on antisemitism in Europe…

Eighty-five House Democrats led by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) urged the administration to act to halt construction of the E1 settlement project in the West Bank…

Third Point founder Dan Loeb hosted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday at his hedge fund’s Manhattan office, according to a photo posted on Loeb’s Instagram account…

Axios reports that Paramount executives have engaged in preliminary conversations for a business-side counterpart to CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss…

Federal officials arrested a New Jersey man on charges of attempting to provide support to the Islamic State; authorities said that Mohamed Sagha had displayed an interest in attacking a Jewish site or National Guard station in the state…

Under the headline “The New York Primary That Is All About Israel,” The Wall Street Journal looks at the degree to which debate over Israel and U.S. policy in the Middle East is “dividing neighbors and consuming” New York’s 10th Congressional District, where Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) is facing a tough primary challenge from former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander…

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a far-left Democrat, edged out Republican Spencer Pratt for the second runoff spot in the race for Los Angeles mayor; Raman will face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, also a Democrat, in November…

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick and Mike Rowe, the CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, announce the launch of America’s Workforce Academy, a partnership between Meta and a number of partner groups to train would-be workers on AI technology…

Meta accused NSO Group of attempting to hack its WhatsApp messaging service in violation of a court order prohibiting the Israeli spyware firm from doing so…

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried submitted a formal request to the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney Office seeking a presidential pardon after serving more than two years of a 25-year term for overseeing a fraudulent cryptocurrency empire…

Richmond, Calif., Mayor Eduardo Martinez is expected to lose his bid for reelection after coming under fire for sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories, including a post that the terror attack at a Sydney, Australia, Hanukkah celebration was an Israeli false flag operation; Martinez trails at least two other candidates in the race, leaving him short of the runoff…

In a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, members of the J7 — leading Jewish groups from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. — raise concerns about rising antisemitism in Canada and call on Ottawa to take a “whole-of-government effort” and address what the body sees as Canada’s “lack of urgency, coordination, and enforcement” as well as “of real action” to address antisemitism…

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, was suspended on Monday over allegations of sexual misconduct with a female aide; the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties will hold a special session to determine the future of Khan’s employment by the court…  

The Wall Street Journal looks at the precarious situation in Lebanon as Beirut, backed by Washington and amid talks with Israel, seeks to degrade Hezbollah as the Iranian-backed group maintains its deep entrenchment in the country’s military and politics…

Pic of the Day

An Israeli man on Monday visited the wreckage of an Iranian missile near the West Bank city of Jericho, following strikes from Iran earlier in the day targeting Israel.

Birthdays

Producer, director, playwright and screenwriter, he has won an Academy Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes, Aaron Benjamin Sorkin turns 65…

Former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, Walter Julius Levy turns 104… Journalist for 30 years at CBS and NBC who then became the founding director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, then a fellow at GWU, Marvin Kalb turns 96… Retired Israeli diplomat who served as ambassador to Italy and France and world chairman of Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal, Aviezer “Avi” Pazner turns 89… Author of 12 books, journalist, lecturer and social activist, founding editor of Ms. Magazine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin turns 87… British businessman, co-founder with his brother Maurice of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi which became the largest in the world, noted for his art collection and for founding Saatchi Gallery, Charles Saatchi turns 83… Diplomat and Shakespeare historian, he was the longtime national editor of Washingtonian magazine, Kenneth Adelman turns 80… Founder of Commonwealth Financial Network (a broker/dealer network) and former chairman of Southworth Development (a golf and leisure business), Joseph Deitch turns 76… Professional mediator, for years she was a syndicated advice columnist in Jewish newspapers, Wendy J. Belzberg… Israel’s former minister of defense and deputy prime minister, Benny Gantz turns 67… Canadian journalist, author, documentary film producer and television personality, Steven Hillel Paikin turns 66… Former lead singer of the Israeli pop rock band Mashina, Yuval Banay turns 64… CEO of Jewish Women’s International, Meredith Jacobs… Managing director at Major, Lindsey & Africa, Craig Appelbaum… EVP of Jewish Funders Network, Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu… Screenwriter, director and producer, Hayden Schlossberg turns 48… Founder and CEO of Delve, an AI platform for public affairs, he was previously a Bush 43 White House Jewish liaison, Jeff Berkowitz… NYC-based writer, actor and entrepreneur, he is a co-founder of Swish Beverages, David Oliver Cohen turns 46… Jerusalem-born Academy Award-winning actor, producer and director, Natalie Portman turns 45… Online producer, writer and director, who together with his brother Benny founded the “React” video series, Rafi Fine turns 43… Multimedia artist known for her work in photography, makeup, hairstyling and textile crafts, Anna Marie Tendler turns 41… Composer and lyricist, in 2024 he became the 20th person to complete the EGOT, an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards, Benj Pasek turns 41… Israeli tech entrepreneur, he is the founder and CEO of A.Team, Raphael Ouzan turns 39… Director of the Yale Journalism Initiative, her book, A Flower Traveled In My Blood, was published last year, Haley Cohen Gilliland… Deputy assistant secretary for strategic communications at the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration, Jeff Solnet… Ice hockey player for the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers and best-selling author of children’s books, Zachary Martin Hyman turns 34… Serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Setscale, Daniel Fine… 

Middle East experts warned on Monday that the Trump administration’s attempts to prevent Israel’s military retaliation against Iran and its pursuit of a swift diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran are exposing a fundamental breakdown in strategic alignment between Washington and Jerusalem. This dynamic is actively undermining American leverage and hardening Tehran’s resolve both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield, the analysts argued.

Following an exchange of airstrikes on Sunday and Monday between Israel and Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abided by a request from President Donald Trump to pause further strikes on Iranian territory. Jerusalem made clear, however, that it will proceed with operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. 

Analysts argued that Trump’s recent moves to restrain Israel are backfiring by degrading U.S. deterrence, emboldening Iran and showcasing the fundamentally diverging interests between Washington and Jerusalem regarding the ultimate outcome of the war.

Speaking at a webinar hosted by the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, Amb. Eric Edelman, a distinguished fellow at JINSA and former White House official, said that the president’s behavior makes the U.S. appear “desperate for a deal.”

“The president has, over the course of several weeks, basically signaled to the Iranians in multiple ways that he is very reluctant to return to kinetic military activity,” Edelman said. “I think that just continues this pattern of suggesting to the Iranians that he really is very anxious for a deal, and I think that’s actually undercutting his leverage with them because it only leads them [Iran] to harden their positions and makes it harder, not easier, to get a deal.”

Edelman added that Iran has actively sought to “take advantage” of this perceived diplomatic anxiety, taking a “much more forward position defending their proxies in Lebanon than they did earlier when Israel was reducing Hezbollah very significantly.”

Ari Cicurel, an assistant director of foreign policy at JINSA, agreed that the administration’s apparent urgency to reach a deal removes vital military deterrence to back up U.S. diplomacy.

“The president has signaled that he is highly prioritizing reaching some deal, and is willing to restrain Israel in order to do that,” Cicurel told Jewish Insider. “That’s a dangerous scenario, in terms of Iran’s potential for aggression, as well as undermines his own ability to reach that deal, because without the credible threat of a military option, Iran is unlikely to make any concessions that would lead to any semblance of a good deal.”

Cicurel noted that restraining Israel at this juncture is particularly “dangerous” given what is at stake regarding the “potential for resumption of major combat operations.” He cautioned that the moves by the Trump administration represent “another example of tensions between U.S. and Israeli leaders undermining deterrence,” giving Tehran a distinct operational gap to exploit.

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the recent escalation was similar to April 2024, during which former President Joe Biden “urged Israel to ‘take the win’ of defending against Iranian missiles and not to retaliate.”

“In this instance, as then, Israel politely declined U.S. preferences and responded to the Iranian attack with a carefully calibrated retaliatory strike that quickly led to de-escalation,” he said.

The friction underscores a broadening rift in the wartime goals of the two close partners, experts said. While the White House remains intensely focused on domestic economic issues and regional stability, Jerusalem views the conflict as a historic window to permanently dismantle Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and regional proxy architecture.

“At this point in the war, Trump and Netanyahu have different interests at play,” Rachel Brandenburg, a senior policy analyst at Israel Policy Forum, told JI. “Trump’s priority is to re-open the Strait of Hormuz to stabilize global energy markets and bring down the price of fuel, and Netanyahu wants to continue degrading Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and nuclear program.”

Trump, she said, “promised Israel a level of victory over Iran that is far from what has transpired. Trump seems to want the war to end so he can move on, and Netanyahu would prefer the opportunity to finish the job Israel and the U.S. started on Feb. 28.” She added, “Both have election politics in mind, with Israeli elections on the horizon for [the fall] and U.S. midterm elections in November. At the moment the war isn’t helping either of them.”

Brandenburg noted that Trump has aimed to restrain Netanyahu “for some time” across both the Iran and Lebanon fronts, but emphasized that an independent Israeli strike after Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel on Sunday remained necessary, despite Washington’s public calls for a pause. “It would have been too much for Israel to sit tight without responding after Iran targeted Israel directly. Whether Iran continues to strike Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon may have more bearing on what the next phase of the war looks like than Trump,” she said.

A central point of contention has emerged over the linkage of fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon to the broader ceasefire with Iran. Experts warn that Washington has mistakenly tolerated an Iranian strategy designed to shield its primary proxy by tying the fighting in Lebanon directly to the broader U.S.-Iran diplomatic track, even as Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he is “not demanding” Lebanon be part of a deal with Iran despite saying Tehran “would like to see it.” 

“Clearly before the attacks, Iran had been seeking to tie the Israel-Hezbollah exchange of fire against one another, as well as the diplomacy between them, with the diplomacy and ceasefire in Iran,” Cicurel noted. “In President Trump seeking to restrain Israel after Iran has attacked it, it unfortunately encourages Iran to continue that linkage and further encourages Iranian aggression.”

Satloff said that the latest round of fighting “was won by those who oppose Iran’s protection-racket scheme to bring Lebanon into its security orbit and under the umbrella of broader U.S.-Iran negotiations.”

“What is different between this round and April 2024 is that Iran has no conceivable legitimate justification to take any action against Israel,” Satloff said. “Iran is trying to claim that Israel’s action against other nationals in another country — Hezbollah in Lebanon — legitimizes its action. This is totally unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.”

Edelman similarly noted that despite Israel’s extensive work to combat the network of Iranian-backed proxies surrounding the country, the administration’s pursuit of a swift ceasefire risks breathing new life into a severely weakened Iranian strategy.

“The Iranian strategy of creating a ring of fire around Israel is in shards,” Edelman said. “And I think as the ceasefire went on, as the Iranians perceived the president’s desire for an agreement, they came to believe that they might be able to rescue something.”

However, Edelman noted that the recent spike in violence does not signal that diplomacy is collapsing, explaining that all sides maintain incentives to pursue a deal.

“I don’t think it’s a signal that negotiations are over,” Edelman observed. He pointed out that “the Iranians actually kind of called a halt to this” round of exchanges to limit the blowback.

Edelman said that with the interior minister of Pakistan currently in Tehran, backchannel diplomatic contacts are actively continuing. He also said that “the Iranians are particularly anxious to get access to frozen funds,” but added that it is “a particular sore point” for Trump.

“I believe he [Trump] wants to try to persuade the American public that whatever deal this ends up being is going to be measurably better than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that President Obama agreed to in 2015,” Edelman said. “In my view that’s going to be a pretty tall order, but not giving the Iranians access to money before they perform whatever obligations they undertake as part of this deal will be a key part of that.”

This P.M. edition 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 cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if Israel went forward with a plan to escalate its strikes on Iran today, “you will be on your own very soon,” the president recalled in an interview with Axios, after which the Israeli leader reportedly called off the attack. Trump also claimed the U.S. and Iran are nearing a “phenomenal deal. We are getting everything we wanted”…

---

Netanyahu subsequently said in a video statement that, while Israel is “holding its fire” against Iran, Jerusalem has “a full right to self-defense” and is “exercising it to the extent necessary” — a message he said he relayed “with appreciation and respect in my good conversations with my friend President Trump.” But Netanyahu warned that if Iran resumes its attacks on Israel, the IDF would respond with “overwhelming force”…

---

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said in an address today that Iran’s simultaneous military strikes and diplomacy are part of an intentional strategy and that, though Tehran is seeking to end the war, it does not want to normalize relations with Washington…

---

U.S. forces disabled another empty oil tanker attempting to sail to Iranian ports today after it failed to disobey orders to stop by firing a precision munition into the ship’s engineering and steering spaces, CENTCOM announced. It’s the seventh such vessel U.S. forces have disabled since the blockade began…

---

Thirty-eight Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), demanded in a letter to Trump that the administration provide Congress with the legal opinion backing its determination that U.S. hostilities against Iran have ended, given the ongoing strikes and U.S. presence in the region…

---

At next week’s G7 summit in France, which Trump will be attending, European leaders will attempt to secure the president’s support for a U.K. and France-led effort to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reports…

---

The J7, a coalition of Jewish communal organizations representing the seven largest Jewish Diaspora populations, urged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize action over further study after he announced Ottawa’s new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion would examine rising antisemitism in the country.

Arguing that the problem has already been well documented, the groups called for a “whole-of-government” response focused on enforcement and countering extremist ideologies and terror movements…

---

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-aligned super PAC, began buying ad time in Michigan today, in what appears to be the pro-Israel group’s first foray into the state’s heated Democratic Senate primary…

---

The Wall Street Journal interviews activists Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who, along with consultant Morris Katz, recruited Graham Platner to run for Senate in Maine. The two said that their own vetting process of Platner did not turn up the Nazi tattoo he had on his chest, nor the full extent of his controversial Reddit posts, but they believed none of what they had seen at the time “will or should stop him from becoming a U.S. senator”…

---

The two factions of Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s Satmar community united behind Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). Reynoso, a native of the district, clashed with some of the Hasidic sect’s leaders as a city councilmember but rebuilt relationships in subsequent years. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has found allies in the Satmar sect while in office, is backing Reynoso’s opponent, Assemblymember Claire Valdez…

---

Ahead of tonight’s Knicks NBA Finals game against the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden, The Forward examines the chant sweeping New York City — “My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four!” — and what it says about the city’s identity…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at the view from Washington on Trump’s attempt to pressure Netanyahu not to retaliate to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attacks.

---

Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina will hold their primary elections tomorrow.

---

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a markup of various bills, including one to direct the State Department to impose sanctions on the leaders and family members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese civil war.

---

The House Appropriations Committee will mark up the FY 2027 spending bills for Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security.

---

The Atlantic Council will kick off its two-day Global Energy Forum with remarks from Energy Secretary Chris Wright; Ben Black, CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy; and representatives from Kuwait, Egypt, Syria and more.

---

Agudath Israel of America will celebrate the opening of its new office on Capitol Hill with a tribute to its longtime vice president for government affairs, Rabbi Abba Cohen, who is set to step down after 37 years at the organization.

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This P.M. edition 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

Three women who were romantically involved with Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner told The New York Times in a detailed exposé that the presumptive Democratic nominee had been “toxic,” physically threatening, misogynistic and unfaithful during their yearslong relationships.

One former partner, Lyndsey Fifield, confirmed Jewish Insider’s reporting from October that Platner had known what the Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest represented and had taught her the word for it, calling it “my Totenkopf”…

---

John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor during his first term, intends to plead guilty to illegally retaining sensitive national security information, CNN reports, a charge that could carry up to five years in prison…

---

Trump told aides he would only consider resuming military action against Iran — besides the skirmishes in the Strait of Hormuz, which the administration has insisted do not qualify as warfare — if Iran were to kill American troops, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal…

---

Trump lambasted the House’s “meaningless vote” yesterday passing an Iran war powers resolution “right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Who would do such an unpatriotic thing,” he mused…

---

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told reporters today that the ceasefire announced yesterday with Israel would take effect only after Hezbollah approved of the proposal, given that it’s contingent on the terror group’s disarmament and withdrawal from southern Lebanon; Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem then rejected the agreement, calling the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting,” and claiming Hezbollah’s withdrawal at this time would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals”…

---

Israel and Hezbollah then continued to exchange fire in southern Lebanon, where a UNIFIL peacekeeper was killed today after a mortar shell struck a U.N. position in the area. The IDF said the launch trajectory of the mortar “clearly indicates” it was launched by Hezbollah…

---

The House rejected a war powers resolution by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) that aimed to block U.S. support for the Israeli operations in Lebanon, after House Democratic leaders publicly came out against the effort. But the Democratic leaders said they would support a future effort by Tlaib along similar lines that will include carveouts for other U.S. operations inside Lebanon, indicating that Tlaib’s next effort is likely to pick up greater Democratic support…

---

Iran and Russia signed a $25 billion memorandum of understanding on nuclear cooperation, Iranian state media reported…

---

The Times takes a look at how Qatar and the U.S. came to dominate the global liquefied natural gas market and how disruptions to Qatari exports amid the Iran war are exposing the risks of that concentration while potentially increasing America’s energy and geopolitical leverage…

---

In its markup of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, the House Armed Services Committee blocked by a voice vote an effort to strip out a relatively routine provision on cooperation with Israel, which has become the subject of criticism and misinformation online. Both the chairman and ranking member of the committee said that critics were misrepresenting the provision and what it entails…

---

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee proposed providing $315 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2027, a slight increase from 2026 funding levels but far below the $1 billion that supporters of the program in the House and Jewish and other faith communities have advocated for, JI’s Marc Rod reports. Jewish groups called the proposal appreciated, but vastly inadequate, given the current threat level…

---

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) called out recent AIPAC and crypto-linked spending in the crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), where AIPAC’s super PAC has invested heavily in support of Hoyer-endorsed Adrian Boafo, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports. Van Hollen accused the “outside groups” of “trying to buy this congressional seat,” and said the groups “do not have the voters’ interests at heart”…

---

A week after winning his primary runoff against anti-Israel Rep. Al Green (D-TX), Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX) co-sponsored the Block the Bombs Act. Menefee was seen as the more pro-Israel choice in the race, who Jewish community leaders hoped would provide a fresh start after their relationship with Green collapsed…

---

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Brig. Gen. Guy Markizeno as his military secretary, after his previous military secretary, Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, became director of the Mossad earlier this week. Markizeno, who currently serves as military secretary to Defense Minister Israel Katz, has “extensive experience in coordinating between the political echelon and the military echelon,” Netanyahu said in a statement…

---

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced Israel will open its first embassy in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, calling the rise of center-right Prime Minister Janez Janša, whose government was approved by the country’s parliament today, a “new chapter” in Israel-Slovenia relations after “years of the hostility of the previous government”…

---

The Times interviews Iranian soccer federation head Mehdi Taj, who said the Iranian national team’s U.S. visas have still not been approved less than two weeks before the team is set to play its first World Cup match in the country, while the team trains in Mexico rather than its planned home base in Arizona. Taj was formerly a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at the new art exhibit at Manhattan’s Altneu synagogue grappling with the end of American Jewry’s “golden age.”

---

We’ll be watching to see how the latest revelations about Platner‘s past play out on the campaign trail ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, where Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is still on the ballot. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is expected to join Platner at his Get Out the Vote rally in Bar Harbor, Maine, tomorrow evening.

---

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

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CAPITOL CONCERNS

GOP lawmakers argue Hamawy’s terror ties could pose national security risk in House

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This P.M. edition 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 told CNBC’s Sara Eisen today that he wants to start the process of winding down U.S. aid to Israel in the final two years of the Trump administration, as both countries work toward reaching a new memorandum of understanding, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

“We’re now working on a memorandum of understanding which will bring down the aid,” Netanyahu said. “I want it to start in the last two years of the Trump administration and I want it to keep going down, coming to zero.” His comments suggest he’s looking to begin phasing out aid even while the current MOU is set to provide Israel with $3.8 billion in U.S. military assistance annually through FY 2028…

---

Despite President Donald Trump’s public acknowledgement of a confrontational phone call with Netanyahu regarding Israeli operations in Lebanon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio largely defended Israel’s attacks against the Lebanese terrorist group, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

Rubio said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing today that Hezbollah reached out to the U.S. government through Lebanese authorities and said that it would stop launching missiles into Israeli territory if Israel did not attack Beirut, but Hezbollah went back on that agreement and launched rockets at Israel within hours…

---

Trump avoided directly answering a question from reporters this afternoon if the U.S. ceasefire with Iran still stands, after Iran launched several ballistic missile attacks around the region last night.

“There is a reason for certain things, and there’s usually a reason that sometimes makes sense. We got it, we nipped it in the bud very quickly … but some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason. So they were reciprocating,” the president said…

---

Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) told JI’s Emily Jacobs on Tuesday that they both believe antisemitism is worse on the left than on the right, arguing that the electoral success of far-left candidates with antisemitic records in Democratic primaries distinguishes the left from the right, as similarly controversial candidates have struggled in GOP primary contests…

---

The anti-Israel American Priorities super PAC pledged to spend $2 million backing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chosen congressional candidates: former City Comptroller Brad Lander, running to unseat Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY); Darializa Avila Chevalier, challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY); and Claire Valdez, running to succeed Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). All three candidates have denounced super PAC spending in the past…

---

Maine Senate candidate and presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner released an internal poll showing he still leads his general election opponent, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), by a margin of four points after potential voters are told about his most recent scandals. The latest figures from Platner’s camp mark a drop from the roughly eight-point advantage the Democratic candidate has held in previous polls…

---

In the race to succeed retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), state Sen. Scott Wiener and Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who was endorsed by Pelosi, will advance to the general election. With half of votes counted so far in the jungle primary, Wiener won 41% and Chan received 28%, while Saikat Chakrabarti, a wealthy tech entrepreneur aligned with the anti-Israel left, came in third with 15%…

---

In Montana’s 1st Congressional District, where Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) is retiring, smokejumper Sam Forstag prevailed in the Democratic primary, where several of the candidates, including Forstag, had expressed views critical of Israel. Forstag now faces an uphill battle against Trump-endorsed Republican military veteran Aaron Flint in the general election, given the district’s GOP leanings…

---

The NYPD arrested an NYU student today for raising a flag that displayed swastikas and a Star of David atop a university building last month. The perpetrator was a fourth-year NYU student at the time of the incident and has not yet received a diploma, a university spokesperson told JI’s Haley Cohen. The New York Times reported that the man is named Alexander Stepnowsky, a music technology student who was charged with a hate crime and trespassing…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at why pro-Israel groups chose not to engage in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District to oppose anti-Israel Democratic nominee Adam Hamawy in yesterday’s primary election.

---

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a markup of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, where Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said he will attempt to strip out a routine provision facilitating expanded U.S.-Israel cooperation.

---

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will testify before the House Ways & Means Committee.

---

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and City Councilmember Virginia Maloney will meet with Manhattan Holocaust survivors at UJA-Federation of New York headquarters to mark Holocaust Survivor Day.

---

Brandeis University’s Jonathan Sarna will sit in conversation with Princeton’s Laura Arnold Leibman at Temple Emanu-El in New York City to discuss the Jewish experience of the American Revolution, a month ahead of the U.S. Semiquincentennial.

---

UN Watch will hold its annual gala in Geneva, where the group will honor free speech and women’s rights activists Abnousse Shalmani and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

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This P.M. edition 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 again dismissed reports that Iranian negotiators have cut off dialogue with the U.S. as “false and erroneous,” writing in a post on Truth Social that discussions have continued “four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today”…

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About the current talks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that the U.S. is not offering Iran any sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and that sanctions relief would only be on the table if Tehran makes concessions related to its nuclear program in the next phase of negotiations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

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The Trump administration sent a fresh slate of diplomatic nominations to the Senate for approval today, but noticeably absent was a full-throated push to fill critical ambassadorial vacancies across the Middle East and North Africa, even as the Iran conflict has increased the need for coordination and dialogue in the region, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.

The newest list of nominees included only two names for the MENA area: Donald Blome, tapped to serve as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs — a role that acts as the principal advisor on U.S. foreign policy across the region — and Nick Oberheiden, nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Egypt…

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In a highly unusual move, Trump appointed Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as acting director of national intelligence, after DNI Tulsi Gabbard announced she will resign effective June 30. Pulte, who has no prior experience in an intelligence role, has been a staunch Trump loyalist and led some of the president’s retribution efforts against his political adversaries…

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The fourth round of Israel-Lebanon diplomatic talks began at the State Department today, and is expected to last through tomorrow…

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At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council yesterday requested by France, every country except for the U.S. called for Israel to immediately withdraw from southern Lebanon and deescalate military hostilities in the country…

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The heads of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations met today with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, head of the country’s General Intelligence Service, in Cairo, where they discussed U.S.-Egypt relations and Middle East security…

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A new poll of 600 likely voters in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary conducted for the campaign of physician Abdul El-Sayed found him leading the pack with 34% of the vote, two months ahead of Election Day. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) came in second with 31% and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow trailed at 19%…

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Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, appearing at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum in Washington, condemned the “egregious examples of antisemitism that have transpired here at home on American soil” since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel as “devastating and antithetical to our values as a nation,” JI’s Emily Jacobs reports…

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The backlash to the participation of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli politicians in the Israel Day on Fifth parade in New York City over the weekend continues: Mark Treyger, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which organizes the parade, told The New York Times that he had been blindsided by their attendance.

“There was a complete lack of transparency here,” Treyger said, adding that the Israeli consulate in New York had declined to share with him who would be attending. Dan Rosenthal, a top official at the UJA-Federation of New York, wrote on X that both New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Smotrich “believe in a one-state solution”…

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White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang announced that the Correspondents’ Dinner will be rescheduled for July 24, after April’s event was cut short by a shooting attack. Trump said he will once again give remarks at the gathering, which will take place at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for the results of today’s high-stakes Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, where plastic surgeon Adam Hamawy, whose past terror ties have raised red flags about his candidacy, is the favorite to win.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be back on the Hill testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, while Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin will appear before the House Homeland Security Committee.

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State Department antisemitism envoy Yehuda Kaploun and the Argentine Embassy in Washington will co-host a commemoration ceremony at the U.S. Institute of Peace marking the 32nd anniversary of the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), with remarks from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) and AMIA President Osvaldo Armoza.

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The Jewish Democratic Council of America will host a candidate forum for the New York 12th Congressional District Democratic primary at the Streicker Center in New York City.

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The Trump administration on Monday sent a fresh slate of diplomatic nominations to the Senate for approval. But noticeably absent was a full-throated push to fill critical vacancies across the Middle East and North Africa, even as the Iran conflict has increased the need for coordination and dialogue in the region.

The newest list of nominees included only two names for the MENA region: Donald Blome, tapped to serve as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs — a role that acts as the principal advisor on U.S. foreign policy across the region — and Nick Oberheiden, nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Egypt.

The lack of attention to Middle East ambassadorships underscores a broader staffing vacancy first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May, which noted that more than 100 U.S. ambassador posts remain unfilled under the current administration, including in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait.

Experts told Jewish Insider that the administration is rapidly running out of time to fill these vacancies and implement its preferred candidates before the midterm elections potentially change the makeup of Congress and threaten to leave the president with a less cooperative Senate. 

Analysts have suggested that the vacancies may reflect a deliberate strategic preference, noting that President Donald Trump has bypassed traditional bureaucratic channels and instead relied on his immediate inner circle — including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — to spearhead high-level engagement and negotiations in the region.

Even so, several foreign policy analysts have argued that leaving these senior posts vacant is an unwise strategy that risks eroding U.S. influence and diplomacy at a time of conflict and pivotal regional realignment. 

This P.M. edition 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 announced that Israel would not carry out strikes against Hezbollah in Beirut in exchange for the terror group halting its attacks on northern Israel, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement instructing the IDF to strike Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital.

While Trump said he had a “very good call with Hezbollah” as part of the negotiations, the Lebanese Embassy in Washington later clarified that the message was relayed through Lebanese officials rather than communicated directly from the president to the terror group.

Netanyahu said after the announcement that he had informed Trump that “if Hezbollah does not stop attacking our cities and civilians, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut,” while the IDF will continue hitting targets in southern Lebanon as planned…

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The news came hours after Iranian state-linked media reported that Tehran had suspended negotiations with the United States and warned it could direct its proxies, including the Houthis in Yemen, to target shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — another critical global trade route — in response to Israel‘s continued military operations against Hezbollah…

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Trump disputed the reporting, writing on Truth Social this afternoon that “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” despite having told NBC News earlier in the day that he would welcome a pause in talks if the reports were accurate. “I think we’ve been talking too much, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told the outlet. “I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time”…

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Amid the diplomatic dance, military operations have escalated: The U.S. struck several sites in Iran over the weekend after Iran downed an American MQ-1 drone. U.S. forces also intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait last night, CENTCOM said…

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Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, criticized the Trump administration’s recent handling of the U.S. war in Iran, telling Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs on Friday, before the events of this weekend, that the “U.S. has lost the plot on Iran” and that a deal with the regime now “wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on”…

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Responding to claims from former National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent that U.S. aid to Israel does not confer benefits to America, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee defended the relationship and said the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding, after the current one expires in 2028, will end aid to Israel and “be based on trade”…

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Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks celebrated his group’s role in ousting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in his primary election earlier this month at the organization’s “America 250”-themed gala held last night in Manhattan, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.

“Being anti-Israel in today’s Republican Party is not — unlike the Democratic Party — a path to success,” said Brooks, who called defeating Massie a “critical victory” for the direction of the GOP and conservative movement…

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNN that he believes Israel is being unfairly singled out for criticism as a Jewish state: “For those who do not want there to be a Jewish state, oftentimes they will predicate their views on this notion that being grounded in a religion and being a democracy can’t coexist,” he said.

“I think it’s important to point out the hypocrisy of that view when there are 46 majority Muslim nations, 23 of which have Islam as their official religion … and only one has Judaism as their official religion, and yet we’re focused on just the Jewish state,” Shapiro continued. (Important to note: While Israel has a Basic Law declaring it the nation-state of the Jewish people, the country does not have an official state religion)…

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El Al announced it will restart nonstop flights between Israel and San Francisco on Oct. 25, citing high demand for the route between the tech hubs, which was paused in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three weekly flights will be numbered LY49, in a nod to the San Francisco 49ers NFL team…

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The Israeli Ministry of Defense said France has barred Israeli officials from participating in the Eurosatory defense show in Paris later this month. Israeli defense firms, which can participate but will not have a dedicated Israeli national pavilion, can only showcase air-defense systems and are prohibited from displaying offensive weapons systems…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for coverage of tomorrow’s key primary elections across the country — including House races in New Jersey, California, Montana, Iowa, New Mexico and South Dakota, California’s gubernatorial race and Montana’s open-seat Senate race — several of which will serve as a referendum on the Democratic Party’s progressive versus establishment divide.

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On the Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Appropriations Committee. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin will testify at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will speak at a House Appropriations Committee hearing. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will also hold a closed intel hearing.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog will attend a command change ceremony at Mossad headquarters to inaugurate Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as the new head of the agency, after the Israeli High Court rejected petitions today calling for Gofman’s appointment to be annulled on ethical and procedural grounds.

---

The Israel Democracy Institute will kick off its two-day Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society in Jerusalem.

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We reported earlier this month on the series of vacancies in key ambassador-level posts throughout the Middle East — in countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait. A senior State Department post overseeing Middle East issues also remains vacant, after the previous nominee was blocked by lawmakers.

At this point, time is running short for President Donald Trump to fill any of those vacant posts before the confirmation process potentially becomes more difficult in the Senate after the midterm elections. 

Processing the nominations will take time: The chamber is set to be out of session for significant portions of the next few months. And there will be various other critical bills — including government funding, the annual defense bill and a potential third reconciliation package, to process on the Senate floor. Even ahead of floor proceedings, the vetting process in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can, itself, take months before nominees appear for a confirmation hearing.

If Trump seeks to fill these posts, it will likely be in the administration’s interest to do so before the end of the current Congress, as GOP control of the Senate for the final two years of Trump’s term is not assured, and even if Republicans retain the majority, it could be with an even smaller margin.

It’s not just Democrats who have proven to be an obstacle to some of the administration’s picks. Amer Ghalib, Trump’s original nominee to be ambassador to Kuwait, was blocked by Republicans over his history of antisemitism, among other issues. And Joel Rayburn, tapped for a top Middle East job in the State Department, was blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who also slowed down proceedings for U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz.

That said, it’s not clear whether the administration will prioritize filling these vacancies. Earlier this month, experts told Jewish Insider that the White House has seemed content to vest responsibility for broad Middle East portfolios within a tight circle of personal allies of the president, including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack — whose role has particularly concerned some Republicans. Many experts have argued that leaving the positions open is unwise and risks harming U.S. influence and diplomacy in the region.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told JI that “the department has confidence in our ability to communicate with our counterparts around the world and advance the national interest.” 

A State Department official claimed that the Trump administration is on track to have more nominees confirmed in the first two years of Trump’s second term than the Biden administration, and praised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for working to promptly confirm its nominees. The official also noted that the State Department had reestablished a committee to review potential career foreign service officers who could be elevated to ambassadorial posts.

Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. envoy to Iran during the first Trump administration, however, warned that it might be “too late” to clear the nominations. He added that “it does not seem that the administration is very concerned” with the issue.

“Normally any administration would try to fill as many ambassadorial posts as possible before the August recess. But it is a little late, because in order to do that you have to have people cleared, formally nominated, go through hearings, be voted out of committee and then come to the floor for a vote,” Abrams said. “I doubt the administration will rush to get ambassadors in place now, because it just does not seem to be a very high priority for the president.” 

Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council in Trump’s first administration, suggested that the White House should prioritize advancing qualified nominees for ambassadorships and criticized Democrats for what he described as a “long history of stymying President Trump’s nominations, regardless of whether they are in the majority or the minority.”

“The administration should continue to prioritize sending qualified ambassadors aligned with the president’s agenda to strategically significant countries, and pressuring Senators to confirm them expeditiously,” Gray said. “Historically, presidents received considerable deference in the confirmation of ambassadors. President Trump and Senate Republicans should demand similar treatment today.”

Other Trump allies argued that filling the ambassadorships is less critical, doubling down on the belief that the administration’s current approach of running Middle East policy through Trump’s inner circle is effective.

“In this region, trusted relationships, direct lines of communication and confidence from the president matter more than whether an ambassador is in place,” Jason Greenblatt, who served as White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, said. “The leadership and senior diplomats in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have strong and trusted relationships with President Trump and with the group doing much of the day-to-day work, including Steve Witkoff, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, Vice President Vance, and Jared Kushner. That group has President Trump’s deep trust and direct access to him. That remains true regardless of how Senate politics develops.”

Late last month, AIPAC circulated what seemed at first glance like a relatively anodyne memo stressing its support for the current 10-year memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel, which guarantees $3.8 billion in annual military aid and missile-defense funding to Israel through 2028.

“Congress must fulfill America’s commitment by providing full security assistance and missile defense funding to Israel for the remainder of the MOU,” the group wrote in its missive published on April 28. 

The memo was notable, however, for what it left out: calling to negotiate a follow-up MOU — the future of which has been a topic of ongoing speculation among analysts and lawmakers beginning to think about the contours of a potential new agreement in a changing political landscape.

That AIPAC had only urged the implementation of the final two years of the current deal was in many ways a tacit acknowledgement of shifting attitudes against U.S. military aid even among supporters of Israel.

The omission, intentional or not, was otherwise reflective of uncertainty around an agreement that has drawn scrutiny not only among Israel critics on the far left and right but also moderate defenders of Israel in both parties who are openly questioning the necessity of U.S. military assistance to a longstanding Middle East ally.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for winding down U.S. financial aid over the next decade, saying that the Jewish state has “come of age” and matured economically to continue on its own. In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” earlier this month, he confirmed that he wanted to immediately begin the process of weaning Israel off of U.S. aid, noting the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance should be focused on joint projects equally funded by Israel and the United States.

“Each U.S.-Israel MOU to date — negotiated by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama — has laid the framework for the decade ahead, strengthening an alliance that advances American interests, supports a strong and capable ally in an unstable region, and drives a remarkable ecosystem of joint development and cooperation between two reliable allies,” Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, told Jewish Insider in a recent statement.  

Some pro-Israel Republican lawmakers — including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Thune (R-SD), the Senate majority leader, and Roger Wicker (R-MS) — have welcomed the idea, even as the GOP has long touted its staunch support for such funding. Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and Democratic presidential prospect who holds close personal ties to Israel, has advocated for immediately ending military aid to Israel, arguing it is not worth expending the “political capital” to promote spending that is facing mounting opposition in Congress and among voters.

But Jewish and pro-Israel groups seem at pains to clarify how they are now assessing an issue that has long been key to their advocacy — particularly as the conversation around such funding and the possibility for a new MOU, which remains an open question, has rapidly evolved in recent months.

“Each U.S.-Israel MOU to date — negotiated by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama — has laid the framework for the decade ahead, strengthening an alliance that advances American interests, supports a strong and capable ally in an unstable region, and drives a remarkable ecosystem of joint development and cooperation between two reliable allies,” Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, told Jewish Insider in a recent statement.  

She added, “We appreciate the Trump administration working closely with the Israeli government toward a new agreement that will strengthen and define the mutually beneficial partnership in the years ahead.”

“We’re figuring it out ourselves,” said Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, adding that he believed Israel “made a mistake” in choosing to forgo U.S. financial aid. He suggested that the U.S. sign “one more” MOU with Israel to cover the next 10 years and help Israel replenish its munitions stocks amid the war against Iran, which he believes is key to advancing American interests in the region. “It zeroes down at the very end,” he explained to JI.

In lieu of an agreement, Makovsky floated “non-monetary” alternatives, for instance, a U.S.-Israel mutual defense treaty — though he questioned whether such a pact could gain enough support in the Senate, where most Democrats recently voted in favor of resolutions to block arms sales to Israel.

Former U.S. and Israeli officials have also recently called for building closer technological ties between the two countries, in anticipation of an era in which financial aid is not a defining feature of the alliance.

“The model in which Israel is assisted by the United States and receives aid has a very small chance of continuing under any future administration,” former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said this month while promoting a new strategic technology alliance with Tom Nides, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “And perhaps even under the Trump administration, so we need to find a new basis for the relationship that is a transition from aid to partnership.”

Even as analysts had indicated last year that the U.S. should begin considering what the next MOU entails, it is unclear if the process is now seriously underway, as Netanyahu’s remarks have complicated the effort. One Hill staffer to a pro-Israel House member told JI he had no knowledge of discussions at the moment.

President Donald Trump was initially surprised when Netanyahu first proposed winding down U.S. funding late last year and did not immediately lend support to the move, JI has previously reported. 

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the prospects for a future MOU, the framework for which first went into effect in 1998 during the Clinton administration. The current agreement was finalized in 2016 near the end of the Obama administration — which touted the deal as “the largest single pledge of military assistance in U.S. history” at the time.

Tal Naim, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, referred JI to Netanyahu’s comments to “60 Minutes” this month.

Looking ahead, Brian Romick, the president of Democratic Majority for Israel, said “there can and should be a discussion about how the U.S.-Israeli security relationship should change with the times, how our partnership must evolve as Israel’s own capabilities grow and its security needs change, and how we can align on a long-term vision for the region.”

“While a new MOU should reflect that Israel’s economy has grown, it should also recognize that Israel’s defense requirements have too, and Israel may struggle to fill the gap in its defense budget that the loss of FMF would create,” Justin Leopold-Cohen, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power who specializes in U.S.-Israel security cooperation, said.

But, he added, “that debate must bring a serious analysis grounded in prioritizing America’s interests and Israel’s security. It cannot shift with political changes or in the middle of a war, especially when American troops are actively deployed in the region. Ultimately this will be a negotiated agreement between two democratically elected governments.”

A spokesperson for the American Jewish Committee likewise used broad strokes to discuss a future MOU, saying it is “far more than a financial commitment.”

The agreement “is a cornerstone of a broader strategic relationship that advances both U.S. and Israeli national security interests, strengthens deterrence against shared adversaries, and reinforces America’s commitment to the security of its closest ally in the Middle East,” the spokesperson told JI. “At a time of growing regional volatility and evolving security threats, maintaining strong and sustained U.S.-Israel security cooperation remains critically important.” 

Justin Leopold-Cohen, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power who specializes in U.S.-Israel security cooperation, said that “there will likely be a new, heavily modified MOU following the current agreement’s expiration.” 

Netanyahu, he told JI, “already revealed his desire to phase out American military aid, granted primarily as Foreign Military Financing,” which typically must be used to purchase U.S. defense products and services.

“While a new MOU should reflect that Israel’s economy has grown, it should also recognize that Israel’s defense requirements have too, and Israel may struggle to fill the gap in its defense budget that the loss of FMF would create,” Leopold-Cohen said.

Dan Shapiro, a U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration who served as a top defense official in the Biden administration, speculated that “the next MOU — if there is an MOU — will look very different from the current one.”

“It will likely phase out FMF, which both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Americans from the left and right are calling for,” Shapiro added. “It will likely emphasize joint research and development, sharing technological advances, and expanded co-production to answer President Trump’s question of what’s in it for the United States. To garner bipartisan support, it should include a consultative mechanism to ensure U.S. weapons are only used in ways consistent with American laws and values and that minimize civilian casualties.”

Daniel Silverberg, a former top foreign policy advisor to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), characterized the MOU as “mutually beneficial,” saying that “it does not need to be exclusively assistance-based.”

“There are many ways to expand cooperation that involve more than giving aid,” he said. “The MOU is a key framework to do so, and it’s crucial to spell that out for a skeptical U.S. audience.”

But, he emphasized to JI, “We can’t want the MOU more than the Israelis want it.”

Writer and researcher Hussain Abdul-Hussain has an unusual story: A Shia Muslim raised in Iraq and Lebanon and taught to hate Israel and the West, he is now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies living in Washington, and the author of a book called The Arab Case for Israel. 

It was his years in Lebanon that gave him unique insight into the country’s political workings, which now play a major role in its tenuous ceasefire with Israel.

“Lebanon was a thriving state when the Arabs were fighting Israel state-to-state, when it was a symmetric military-to-military war,” Abdul-Hussain told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov and Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy Executive Director Asher Fredman on the “Misgav Mideast Horizons” podcast this week. 

“What happened is that, after 1967, when the Arab armies were defeated, the Arabs switched from military-to-military to asymmetric war, with armed factions like Hamas, or the PLO before Hamas, or Hezbollah [against Israel],” he said. “They decided when to fight, how to fight, where to launch attacks, and these were in Jordan and Lebanon. … Jordan decided [to say] ‘We are a state and we will not allow these armed factions to run our affairs’ … They ejected them in 1970. Lebanon, unfortunately, came under enormous pressure from all kinds of Arab capitals. … Everyone forced Lebanon to accept [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat and his armed factions to operate out of Lebanon and launch attacks on Israel.”

“Since then, the Lebanese state has not been able to restore its sovereignty to pre-1969 days,” Abdul-Hussain argued. “After Israel ejected Arafat in 1982, Hezbollah inherited the mantle. … We have an issue of chronic weakness of the Lebanese state facing armed factions.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is “probably the only elected Lebanese official to state on the record that Hezbollah is treasonous and wages war on behalf of Iran,” Abdul-Hussain said. In addition, there were reports as talks began last month that Aoun would be willing to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, Aoun said more recently that Lebanon would not be able to negotiate with Israel until its fight against Hezbollah ended.

“Hezbollah and Iran don’t want any kind of direct talks with Israel,” Abdul-Hussain pointed out.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, he noted, have also been advising the Lebanese government not to negotiate normalization, a topic that was one of Israel’s conditions for entering the talks.

Riyadh’s motivation, according to Abdul-Hussain, is for Arab states to line up behind the Gulf state and wait for it to make peace with Israel — a move that Saudi Arabia has conditioned on the creation of a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

“This is leverage for the Saudis; it’s not in the interest of Lebanon,” Abdul-Hussain said. “These are factors that come in so the Lebanese state remains weak and unable to take on Hezbollah.”

Abdul-Hussain credited the Trump administration for “giving Lebanon more attention than any administration since the early days of Ronald Reagan. … I’m happy that someone sees Lebanon as it is, not as we imagine it to be or just dismiss it and say ‘This is too complicated for us and we’re not going to go into it.’”

That attention is “a golden opportunity … to help disarm Hezbollah and live at peace with Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, everybody else,” he said. “If the Lebanese don’t grasp it, I’m not sure there will be another opportunity in the coming future.” 

Abdul-Hussain said that Aoun’s recent message that he will not shake hands with Netanyahu at the outset of negotiations does not diminish the major step he took toward peace talks with Israel.

“For a Lebanese president to say that we are parting ways with the Arab League and Saudi Arabia and that we are ready to shake hands with the Israeli prime minister if there is an agreement – that is huge,” he said.

As for France, which has often intervened on matters related to Lebanon, but is not involved in the talks with Israel, Abdul-Hussain said, “France has not paid a penny to Lebanon in a long time … but for some reason they keep sitting at the table deciding Lebanon’s fate. My guess is that they enjoy the spotlight.”

The French and the Saudis try to intervene in Lebanon “for their own ego,” Abdul-Hussain argued, but France is “more dangerous,” because it “tries to curry favor with Iran by taking Hezbollah’s side in Lebanon. The French would tell the Iranians, ‘Listen, we will not go against Hezbollah … [or] whatever Hezbollah policy. But keep in mind that when the time comes and there are no sanctions and you need to give contracts away, the French took your side. The French do this all the time. They did it with Saddam Hussein.”

A more recent example Abdul-Hussain cited was when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain brought a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council stating that the Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway and countries should be able to use military force to open it; “The French took the side of the Chinese, Russians and Iran” against it, he said.

“Why would France do that?” he said. “OK, you don’t like Trump, you don’t want to open your airspace to Trump. But if you are about international law, this is as [legitimate] as it can get. So what do the French do? They hedge against the West. … and this is what they’re doing in Lebanon.” 

Abdul-Hussain said he was “thrilled” to hear Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter say that he “would like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations.”

Abdul-Hussain’s book, The Arab Case for Israel, was published in February and features not only his arguments in favor of supporting Israel, but how he came to hold such views after receiving an anti-Israel education.

“My dad is from Iraq, from Baghdad, and my mom is from Baalbek in Lebanon,” Abdul-Hussain recounted this week. “I grew up in both countries. After second or third grade, we left Iraq permanently, during the war with Iran. … Of course, the 1980s in Lebanon is when Israel invaded [Lebanon] and when Hezbollah was being put together, and the days of the civil war.” 

Abdul-Hussain recalled growing up in Iraq “shouting slogans against Khomeini and against Israel, and then … [in] Lebanon shouting pro-Khomeini slogans against Saddam Hussein, but still against Israel.” 

He attended the American University in Beirut, where he was exposed to less conservative Muslim ideas of “all kinds, Marxist, socialist, anarchist, you name it” but still anti-Israel.

Abdul-Hussain became a reporter at the now-defunct Daily Star, a leading English-language newspaper in Lebanon, rising to the position of managing editor. 

When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Abdul-Hussain was covering the events and drove to the border.

“At the time, the border was just a flimsy barbed wire. You could see Israelis on the other side, and I stood there and I watched Israeli families in Metula and all these towns … mothers driving their children to school, men working the fields, some guy driving a tractor. This was the first time that I saw Israelis as humans … as people like us, and this made me so curious,” he recalled.

Abdul-Hussain was able to pick up Israeli radio stations from Lebanon, and began to learn Hebrew in that way, because “If you lived in Lebanon, you had no access to anything Israeli. The only access you had is anti-Israel books by Edward Said, [Norman] Finkelstein, [Noam] Chomsky. You can buy Mein Kampf anywhere.” 

Listening to Israeli radio, Abdul-Hussain found that “These guys are not really obsessed with killing all the Arabs and taking all the land and establishing Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and all the conspiracy theories that I had learned.”

In 2004, he moved to Washington to work for the newly-founded Al Hurra, the U.S.-backed Arabic language news channel meant to support the spread of democracy in the Middle East, and has lived in the U.S. ever since.

“After I came to the U.S., I had unlimited access to everything Hebrew and Jewish and Israeli and I understood this is a totally different story from the one I was taught,” he said.

Abdul-Hussain makes the case that “Whatever happened in the past, whatever injustice has befallen the Arabs and the Palestinians, moving on and seeing Israel as an asset is much more in the Arab interest than trying to wind the clock back to a time when Israel didn’t exist.” 

“I show the numbers, the receipts as we say here in Washington,” he added. “Look at the Abraham Accords countries and their trade and economy. Look at the cold peace with Egypt and Jordan and their trade and economy, which is much less than the Abraham Accords countries. Then, look at Lebanon and Syria, who are still at war and miserably behind the others.”

Abdul-Hussain pointed at a trend by which “The more peaceful you get with your surroundings, the better your economy thrives and blooms. This is the idea of the book.”

LOS ANGELES — Amid declining public support for the U.S. military action against Iran, Virginia’s former Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, defended President Donald Trump’s Middle East policies in a Tuesday address at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

“I believe what has been briefed out: that the need to intervene immediately was real, and therefore this was a moment for us to address something that has been festering for 50 years and that has been the bane — the bane of safety and the bane of the entire region for 50 years,” said Youngkin, who held office until January. “I support us solving this now.” 

Youngkin was speaking on a panel at the Beverly Hills convening with former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, both of whom are considered potential future presidential candidates. Youngkin stood by his support for Trump’s war against Iran even amid conversation about the growing number of younger Americans, Republicans included, who are questioning Trump’s more interventionist approach to global conflicts.

“We have seen a decimation of their military capabilities,” Youngkin said of Iran. “We should drive this to its finish.”

Emanuel has amped up his criticism of Israel in recent months. He argued on Tuesday that eroding American support for Israel can be traced back to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to Congress, when he bypassed President Barack Obama, angering many Democrats. But Emanuel also noted that even Republicans are less sympathetic to Israel than they used to be. 

Youngkin, however, maintained that supporting Israel is the right thing to do.

“Who do we stand with? I think we should stand with Israel. I just do,” he said. 

The tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran came close to collapsing overnight after the Islamic Republic fired 15 missiles and four drones at the United Arab Emirates. The question now is whether hostilities will resume in the coming days — just before next week’s major summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, slated to take place in Beijing.

Monday’s Iranian missile fire came amid ramped-up rhetoric from both Tehran and Washington over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and as the U.S. launched “Project Freedom” to assist vessels attempting to transit through the waterway. One of the drones fired yesterday by Iran hit the UAE’s Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, sparking a fire that injured three Indian workers. 

Iran’s attack on the UAE was widely condemned, with Saudi, Qatari, British and Indian officials denouncing the renewed strikes.

CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper touted the initial success of the Project Freedom naval effort, which on its first day protected two U.S.-flagged ships traveling through the strait. It’s unclear the degree to which the endeavor will help with the resumption of normal activities in the waterway, which normally sees some 120 vessels passing through each day.

Later Monday, two U.S. naval ships came under heavy fire from Iran as they navigated through the passage. Iran claimed to have hit a warship, which CENTCOM denied. Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst that Iran would be “wipe[d] off the face of the earth” if it targeted ships being escorted through the strait. The Wall Street Journal reported that the president “for days has toggled between two competing impulses: severely punishing Iran for failing to abandon its nuclear work, and avoiding a significant escalation that could draw the U.S. deeper into a Middle East conflict.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, for his part, criticized Project Freedom — which he referred to as “Project Deadlock” — claiming that Pakistan-brokered talks between Washington and Tehran “are making progress” and warning that the U.S. and the UAE “should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers.”


Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the strikes on the UAE — albeit without mentioning Iran. “It is absolutely essential that the ceasefire be upheld and respected,” Sharif posted on X, “to allow necessary diplomatic space for dialogue leading to enduring peace and stability in the region.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to address the situation with Iran when he speaks to reporters from the White House briefing room at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, the first press briefing since White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went on maternity leave.

Later this week, Rubio is set to head to the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo XIV amid tensions between the Holy See and the Trump administration over the pontiff’s comments on the war in Iran. It’s unclear if the trip will still happen if the situation in the Gulf further devolves.

The bigger question is what will happen next week, when Trump is slated to meet with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing — a summit already delayed once due to the war. Over the weekend, Beijing told Chinese firms to ignore U.S. sanctions on five Iran-linked oil refiners in the country.Beijing has attempted to play both sides of the conflict, encouraging Iran to pursue diplomacy while also providing the Islamic Republic with commercial support for use in the event of a resumption of hostilities. Should the summit take place, all eyes will be on Xi to see if he attempts to play Trump, as well.

Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview this week’s Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, and look at the state of play in the Middle East as President Donald Trump rejects Iran’s latest proposal to end the war. We have the scoop on a new Title VII complaint filed by the Brandeis Center against the National Education Association, and report on the University of Michigan’s apology after a faculty member bashed Israel while delivering a commencement address during the weekend’s graduation ceremonies. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Victor Schwartz, Yael Shelbia and Morgan Ortagus.

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

• We’re keeping an eye on the launch of the U.S.’ “Project Freedom” effort — announced by President Donald Trump on Sunday — to guide vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has since warned the U.S. Navy against entering the waterway. The U.S. military denied a claim earlier today that Iran hit an American warship trying to enter the strait. More below.
• The Milken Institute Global Conference kicked off yesterday in Los Angeles and runs through Wednesday. More below on what to expect at this year’s summit. JI’s Gabby Deutch is on the ground covering the Milken conference — drop her a line if you’re there, too.
• In Washington, U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers is slated to meet this morning with Lior Haiat, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ deputy director-general for North America.
• Tonight in New York, The Jewish Center is hosting a candidate roundtable with Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, two of the candidates vying to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in New York’s 12th Congressional District.
• Lag B’Omer begins tonight. In Israel, police are preparing for potential unrest in the vicinity of Mt. Meron, a Hasidic pilgrimage site where thousands have gathered annually for the holiday. Law enforcement scaled back the celebrations out of concern that the site, in northern Israel, could become a target for Hezbollah.
• The Pulitzer Prize Board will announce the winners of the 2026 prizes at 3 p.m. ET.
• A bevy of high-profile guests are slated to attend tonight’s Met Gala, with attendees dressed according to this year’s theme, “Costume Art.” This year marks the first that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are serving as cosponsors and lead chairs of the annual event.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH

A who’s who of global decision-makers is gathering today at the iconic Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles for this year’s annual Milken Institute Global Conference. Investors, philanthropists and business executives from around the world will hobnob with pro athletes, movie stars and politicians. 

The four-day convening is billed as a way for global leaders to address some of the world’s biggest challenges. According to event organizers, this year’s conference is focused on building “a more sustainable, equitable and resilient future” in the face of “recent disruption and innovation.” In other words: What are the most powerful innovators in the world going to do about artificial intelligence?

AI is shaping up to be the buzzword at Milken, just like it is everywhere else right now. Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan will each be talking on Monday about developing a competitive workforce. Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA) will speak on a panel with Alphabet President Ruth Porat and Meta President Dina Powell McCormick about disruptions to the American workforce. Perhaps the most anticipated speaker of the day is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. 

A closed-door session today about ties between Silicon Valley, Washington and the Middle East features UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, Israeli-born Silicon Valley investor Elad Gil, Abu Dhabi department of health chair Mansoor Ibrahim Al Mansoori and Jacob Helberg, the U.S. under secretary of state for economic affairs. 

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

UNSTEADY GROUND

Mideast ceasefires shaky on three fronts, as Trump declares Iran’s terms ‘not acceptable’

Iran’s latest proposal for a ceasefire is unacceptable, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, as the tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon continued to hold in name only and as Israel weighed whether to resume combat in Gaza, citing Hamas’ refusal to disarm, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. “It’s not acceptable to me,” Trump told Israeli public broadcaster Kan of Iran’s proposed ceasefire terms. “I’ve studied it; I’ve studied everything. It’s not acceptable.” 

State of play: Iran submitted a proposal on Thursday that reportedly includes an end to the fighting, after nearly a monthlong ceasefire, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in the next 30 days. Talks about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear plan would only begin after that, with an initial offer of a 15-year pause in uranium enrichment. On Sunday, Trump announced “Project Freedom,” an endeavor by which, he wrote on Truth Social, the U.S. would “guide … ships out of these restricted waterways” in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Read the full story here.

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SCOOP

Brandeis Center files Title VII complaint against the National Education Association

A leading Jewish legal group has filed a bias complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the National Education Association, alleging the country’s largest teachers’ union violated civil rights law by discriminating against its Jewish members, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen has learned. 

What it says: The complaint, filed Monday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, highlights several incidents in which the NEA — which represents over 3 million educators — allegedly breached Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees, resulting in the spread of antisemitism in K-12 public schools. 

Read the full story here.

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RESOLUTION REJECTED

New School rejects student government vote to cut ties, defund Hillel

The New School rejected a student government vote on Saturday to defund and sever ties with the private New York City university’s Hillel chapter, a vote that prompted condemnation from local lawmakers and Jewish groups, while drawing praise from a controversial Muslim advocacy organization, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Move to cut ties: On Friday, the New School’s student senate approved a resolution to strip funding and cease collaboration with Hillel, the world’s largest Jewish student organization. In a 38-page report, the student organization alleged that Hillel violated international law by running programming in Israel, including Birthright trips and volunteer opportunities with the Israel Defense Forces. 

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CAMPUS BEAT

University of Michigan apologizes for faculty leader’s anti-Israel commencement speech

The University of Michigan apologized after the outgoing chair of the faculty senate, who has a history of anti-Israel advocacy, delivered an unapproved jab at Israel at a commencement ceremony on Saturday, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Going off script: Derek Peterson, a tenured professor of history and African studies, praised “the pro-Palestinian student activists who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza,” during his campus-wide commencement address to loud cheering from students. The university’s president, Domenico Grasso, said in a statement later on Saturday that the remarks were “hurtful and insensitive to many members of our community” and noted that Peterson had “deviated from the remarks he had shared before the ceremony.” 

Read the full story here.

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CAMPAIGN CONTROVERSY

Far-left Pa. candidate pushed Bondi Beach conspiracy theory

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb — a Democrat seeking the Philadelphia House seat of retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA) — shared an Instagram post blaming the massacre of Jewish Australians at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on “Zionists,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. In the aftermath of the attack, in which 14 were killed and 40 injured, Rabb’s account shared disinformation insinuating the slaughter was a false flag perpetrated by Israeli interests, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. 

What it said: “We all know the gunmen were likely Zionists themselves,” read the post, which used an emoji in the place of the word “gun.” Shortly after the attack, the alleged assailants were identified as a father and son whom authorities linked to an offshoot of the Islamic State. A Rabb campaign spokesperson asserted to the Inquirer that the candidate not only did not share the post himself, but that he had “no knowledge” of it, and blamed a former staffer for posting it.

Read the full story here.

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tucker to the times

Tucker Carlson touts relationship with Vance, slams Trump and Rubio in NYT interview

In a wide-ranging New York Times interview published on Saturday, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson offered an unusually personal defense of Vice President JD Vance, describing him as a close friend while suggesting he is being undermined by hawkish forces inside the White House amid tensions over the administration’s military actions in Iran, Jewish Insider’s Josh Kraushaar reports.

Carlson’s comments: “I couldn’t be a bigger fan of him as a man,” Carlson told Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. He added that Vance is “in a tough spot” because his long-held foreign policy views clash with the administration’s decision to attack Iran in February. Carlson took a swipe at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, baselessly alleging that backers of Washington’s top diplomat have been engaging in “nonstop treachery” against Vance. “There are people in the White House who want to hurt JD Vance and have wanted that since the very first day. They were bitter. They wanted Marco Rubio to be the choice as vice president,” Carlson said.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Dem Reset on Israel: In The Bulwark, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro posits that the Democratic Party’s relationship with Israel has hit the “feeding-frenzy stage” and suggests considerations for the party to weigh as it moves leftward on Israel. “How will Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis respond to the end of U.S. assistance to Israel? Will it make them less likely to pursue their dreams of Israel’s destruction? Or will they feel emboldened? … Would Arab and Muslim countries considering normalizing relations with Israel be more or less likely to do so if they see the United States pull away? Would Gulf nations still see the United States as their primary security partner as we distance ourselves from Israel?” [TheBulwark]

MBZ Zigs: The Financial Times’ Andrew England looks at how United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed is steering the Gulf nation as the region sits at a crossroads that will determine its future. “For MBZ, it is a pivotal moment — a conflict he had long prepared for, but also a test of who among his nation’s traditional allies could be relied upon in a crisis. And the UAE has made clear it believes some have been found wanting. The state has openly criticised what it perceives to be the tepid response of Arab and Muslim partners. … But the war gave it the impetus to act on a threat it had previously only dangled, deepening a festering rift with Riyadh, fuelled by economic competition and conflicting visions of how to manage the region’s crises.” [FT]

The Unity Test: In The Jerusalem Post, William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, considers the challenges facing the American Jewish community. “Institutions were built to sustain a broader communal fabric: federations, schools, synagogues, community centers, and civic organizations grounded in the idea that Jewish continuity is a collective responsibility. That instinct toward unity now faces a real test. … Fragmentation carries risk, especially under external pressure. The strength of American Jewish life depends on the ability to hold differences within a framework of mutual obligation: to argue, even sharply, without losing sight of a shared inheritance and a common future.” [JPost]

Pod Squad: Air Mail’s Alyson Krueger spotlights the use of the “pod” as an alternative to a traditional receiving line during King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington. “A political pod featured Speaker Mike Johnson, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Nancy Pelosi, and Stephen Miller — a seemingly flammable grouping. But John McCarthy, a Democratic strategist and former Biden White House aide, who was also in the pod, saw diplomatic promise in the 25 minutes its members spent waiting as a group. ‘There are not a lot of scenarios where leaders who are Democrats and Republicans are getting together in D.C. right now,’ he says. He thought it created a useful shared experience. ‘You met the King together! Next time you need something across the aisle, you have this interesting life experience that you can draw upon.’” [AirMail]

Word on the Street

National Security Action, the foreign policy group founded by former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Obama administration senior official Ben Rhodes — both of whom remain on the board — has tapped Maher Bitar, the former NSA official who had faced criticism from GOP lawmakers for his alleged “clear bias against and disregard for Israel,” to lead the organization as it wades into the 2028 primaries…

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, a likely Democratic presidential candidate, on Friday signaled his backing for Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who has drawn scrutiny over his far-left views and decades-old Nazi tattoo that he recently covered up, Jewish Insider’s Josh Kraushaar reports…

The newly formed Jewish Federation of Annapolis & the Chesapeake is pushing back after Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman repeatedly declined to include funding for security grants requested by Jewish institutions in his proposed budget, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports… 

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were spotted on Saturday night at the Amex x Carbone Beach pop-up in Miami Beach, Fla., chatting with Carbone owner Jeff Zalaznick, on the sidelines of the Miami Grand Prix… 

Israeli model Yael Shelbia and Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll, who have been rumored to be dating since last year, made their F1 debut as a couple at the Miami Grand Prix, where Stroll was racing, on Sunday…

New York magazine profiles wine importer and distributor Victor Schwartz, the lead plaintiff challenging the Trump administration’s tariffs, who scored a 6-3 Supreme Court victory last fall…

Ryan Cohen’s GameStop made an offer to purchase eBay for $56 billion, with the goal of turning the online reseller into an Amazon competitor…

Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff clashed with students whom he said were engaging in “harassment and intimidation” following an on-campus event on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; several students surrounded Kotlikoff’s car as he was trying to leave the parking lot and he was filmed backing into a student while another claimed he ran over his foot, but no injuries were reported…

The Washington Post spotlights JoJo and Yoni Kalin, a married couple that witnessed the killings last year of two Israeli Embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, and looks at how they have responded in different ways to the rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment…

A historic Nantucket, Mass., lifesaving station purchased by the island’s Jewish community is set to become Nantucket’s first synagogue in more than four decades…

Australia’s royal commission into the December attack at a Hanukkah party at Sydney’s Bondi Beach held its first public hearing, with members of the city’s Jewish community testifying about their experiences with antisemitism; among those testifying was Sheina Gutnick, whose father was killed in the attack and who warned of the “real-world consequences of hatred”…

The man suspected of stabbing two Jewish men in the London suburb of Golders Green last week was charged with two counts of attempted murder, as well as a weapons charge; Essa Suleiman was also hit with a third charge of attempted murder, for an attack that took place in another part of the city earlier in the day…

A British court found a Kuwaiti asylum-seeker guilty of weapons charges and preparing to conduct a terrorist attack, a year after the man was apprehended outside the Israeli Embassy in London with knives…

Robert Shrimsley, the executive editor of the Financial Times, warns that British Jews are “being forced to live a more fearful and smaller Jewish life” amid ongoing attacks on Jewish communities around the country…

Israel Hayom interviews Morgan Ortagus, who departed the Trump administration earlier this year after working on the White House’s Lebanon portfolio…

The family of journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012, said there is new information indicating that Tice is potentially alive and in the hands of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…

Pakistan said it assisted in the transfer of 22 Iranians whose ship was seized by the U.S. Navy last month, as a “confidence-building measure” between Washington and Tehran…

The New York Times looks at how China is attempting to benefit from any outcome in the U.S.-Iran conflict, both by encouraging Tehran to come to the negotiating table and providing commercial support to the Islamic Republic in the event of a resumption of hostilities, while also preparing for a summit in mid-May between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping…

The Wall Street Journal profiles Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani, who was released from Iran’s death row last year after facing corruption charges and now helps the Islamic Republic evade sanctions through cryptocurrency networks…

Marc Rod, JI’s senior congressional correspondent, and Olivia Truesdale-Rod, program manager for Former Members of Congress, married on Friday at Meridian House in Washington, D.C., with JI’s D.C. team in attendance. Rabbi Aaron Miller of Washington Hebrew Congregation officiated…

Nick Stewart is departing his role as managing director of advocacy at FDD Action and joining the Trump administration, working in the office of White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff…

Psychologist and Holocaust survivor Edith Eger, who as a teenager in Auschwitz was forced to dance for Dr. Josef Mengele — and who recounts those experiences in her books — died at 99…

Pic of the Day

The Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center hosted the opening on Friday of an exhibit titled “Plates of Hope and Color” that included 180 original works created by Israeli artists, musicians and “lone soldiers” from around the world with no family in Israel.

Birthdays

Medalist in the women’s halfpipe event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, Arielle Townsend Gold turns 30…

Former chairman and CEO of American International Group, once the largest insurance company in history, then chairman and CEO of the Starr Companies, Maurice Raymond “Hank” Greenberg turns 101… Executive director of the Texas A&M Hillel for 30 years, now a security consultant for the tourism industry, Peter E. Tarlow turns 80… U.S. special envoy for climate change in the Obama administration, now a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Todd D. Stern turns 75… Trustee of the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, Lee Sherman… Partner at NYC-based Mintz & Gold, he was EVP and general counsel for both the Las Vegas Sands and News Corporation, Lawrence “Lon” A. Jacobs… Northern Virginia-based portrait artist, Ilisa G. Calderon… CEO at Gigawatt Global, Yosef Israel Abramowitz turns 62… Member of the House of Representatives (D-VT), Rebecca A. “Becca” Balint turns 58… Triathlete, she has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and is a winner of international ironman competitions, Joanna Sue Zeiger turns 56… Director of congregational education at NYC’s Park Avenue Synagogue, Bradley Solmsen… Former Florida state senator and state attorney for Palm Beach County from 2013 to 2025, Dave Aronberg turns 55… Chair and director at NYC’s Department of City Planning until last month, Daniel Garodnick… Mechal Wakslak… Executive advisor at Veterans Community Project, he served as the secretary of state of Missouri, Jason Kander turns 45… Chief operating officer at Repair the World, Jessica Chait… Tech entrepreneur, best known as a co-founder of both Vine and HQ Trivia, Rus Yusupov turns 42… SVP at BerlinRosen, Allison Fran Bormel… Chief development officer at Ramah Darom, previously with Americans for Ben-Gurion University and AIPAC, Rebecca Leibowitz Wasserstrom… Script writer at Disney, Steven A. Rosenberg… Adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, Shana Mansbach… Manager of public policy and external affairs at Meta / Facebook, Sasha Altschuler… Actor best known for voicing the title character of the animated film “Finding Nemo,” Alexander Gould turns 32… Partner in the client services group at Signum Global Advisors, Elliot Miller… Finance lead at Shopify, Olivia Breuer…