Michigan rabbis set red lines for El-Sayed
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Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, talks with voters on August 16, 2026.
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we analyze the results of Tuesday night’s Democratic primaries in New Hampshire, and report on the blowback from the U.K.’s move to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank. We highlight a new petition campaign launched by a coalition of Michigan Jewish leaders to pressure Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to affirm a series of “nonnegotiable” commitments to the Jewish community, and report on a new caucus launched by Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Elise Stefanik to combat antisemitism on college campuses. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ruby Chen, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot Kaufman.
Curated by Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Haley Cohen.
Today’s Agenda
The Republican National Committee will kick off its first-ever midterm convention this afternoon in Dallas. President Donald Trump will deliver the keynote address tonight (as well as closing remarks on Thursday), with additional speeches throughout the two-day convening by Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Also scheduled to speak are: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA); Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jon Husted (R-OH) and Dave McCormick (R-PA); Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate Ken Paxton; Georgia Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA); former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan; and former RNC Chair Michael Whatley, GOP nominee for Senate in North Carolina.
Some GOP candidates in tight races, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), will not be attending the convention, in what appears to be a pointed effort to keep their distance from Trump.
Rhode Island is holding its primaries today: Gov. Dan McKee, a Democrat, is at risk of losing the nomination to business leader Helena Foulkes. Brett Smiley, the Jewish mayor of Providence, R.I., is also facing serious opposition from 27-year-old state Rep. David Morales, a socialist challenger.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington is hosting its Rosh Hashanah celebration this evening.
The two-day MEAD Summit continues in Washington today, attended by representatives from Israel, the U.S. and Arab countries — including some that do not have diplomatic ties with Israel.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Comptroller Mark Levine will walk the runway at the Metropolitan Opera House during Style Across the Aisle, where they will be dressed by Jewish designers Elie Tahari and Yosel Tiefenbrun.
Elsewhere in New York City, the La’Aretz Foundation will host its annual benefit dinner.
One Thing To Know
ANALYSIS
By Marc Rod
Tuesday night’s Democratic primaries in New Hampshire delivered mixed results for candidates who made attacks on Israel a centerpiece of their closing arguments.
Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) trounced progressive activist Karishma Manzur by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (65%-33%) in the Senate primary, after Manzur attacked Pappas for his stance on Israel and called him a “shill for AIPAC” as a central message of her campaign.
Pappas is now facing a competitive general election against former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), who is running to rejoin the Senate after nearly two decades out of office. Sununu is expected to be a formidable challenger who holds a narrow lead over Pappas in some recent public polling.
The Big Reads
SETTLEMENT SHOWDOWN
U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced a sweeping new sanctions regime on Tuesday targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, marking a major escalation in Britain’s diplomatic stance toward Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Addressing the House of Commons, Miliband unveiled an import ban on goods produced in settlements alongside targeted sanctions against individuals and corporate entities involved in constructing, advertising or financing settlement expansion. The secretary also announced a ban on real estate events in the U.K. promoting the purchase of homes in West Bank settlements.
Muted Marco: Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a tepid response on Tuesday to the U.K.’s new sanctions regime against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “Obviously, we’re not going to do what the U.K. did,” Rubio told reporters when asked about Miliband’s announcement, but said he didn’t have anything further to add.
Scoop: Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to review whether the U.K. and other countries imposing trade restrictions and additional sanctions on Israeli settlements places those countries in violation of U.S. anti-boycott laws — and to consider whether the effort merits a response from the U.S., JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Diplomacy risks: Former White House officials and diplomats say the U.K. government’s decision is primarily a bid to appease far-left political factions in Britain, warning that while the move is unlikely to alter Israeli behavior on the ground, it risks increasing diplomatic friction between London, Jerusalem and Washington.
COMMUNITY VOICE
A group of more than a dozen Michigan rabbis, cantors and Jewish lay leaders from across the state launched a new petition campaign this week to pressure Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee, to affirm a series of “nonnegotiable” commitments to the Jewish community, arguing that failing to do so would jeopardize Jewish support for Democrats, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign, created in cooperation with the liberal Jewish group Zioness Action Fund, calls out El-Sayed for a “sustained pattern” of comments by himself and surrogates that organizers say crosses the line into antisemitism, including downplaying, justifying or potentially inciting violence against Jews.
CAMPUS CAUCUS
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) announced that they are launching the Combating Antisemitism on College Campuses Caucus during a visit to Vanderbilt University on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The announcement was made during an event with Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and the leaders of the University of Kentucky, University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth College, the University of Alabama and Washington University in St. Louis. The event, with an audience of Vanderbilt students, faculty, staff and local community members, was focused on highlighting some of the campuses that have, in the view of the organizers, successfully navigated the post-Oct. 7 environment, balancing freedom of speech and expression with protecting Jewish students.
The Rundown
EXCLUSIVE
BOOKSHELF
A FATHER’S LOVE
SAFETY SURGE
SCOOP
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the previous two days, CENTCOM announced. Iran retaliated by firing 20 ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan, 18 of which the Jordanian army said it intercepted…
The tit-for-tat comes as Iran signals readiness for broader escalation, The New York Times reports, with analysts warning the clashes risk reigniting full-blown war ahead of a U.S. midterm season Tehran believes gives it leverage…
Earlier on Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against 27 Iranian airlines as well as several front companies, foreign intermediaries and other aviation-related actors for supporting the regime’s illicit activities…
Despite the new sanctions and more than a decade of existing ones, Iranian airline Mahan Air, which Washington accuses of ferrying cash, weapons and personnel for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is expanding its operations, The Wall Street Journal reports…
The global price of oil hit $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July, after Yemen’s Houthis attacked energy facilities in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, stoking supply concerns…
The Independent examines why the escalating fighting between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia poses a problem for the Trump administration, with analysts arguing that Washington can no longer ignore the Red Sea front of the war with Iran…
Former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee in Michigan, is up with a new ad attacking his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, for associating himself with influencer Hasan Piker, and featuring the antisemitic streamer’s comments that “America deserved 9/11.” “Abdul is too extreme for Michigan. I’m Mike Rogers, and I approve this message — because I’ll fight to keep America safe. Always,” Rogers says at the end of the ad…
El-Sayed’s speech at a controversial Islamic convention in Detroit last weekend came before a video montage that featured an imam declaring “America is going down!” and an address from another cleric who described lawmakers who voted for a bill tackling antisemitism as “treasonous”…
A new poll commissioned by the Detroit News found Rogers with a narrow 46%-44% lead over El-Sayed, with 9% of respondents undecided. The poll was conducted by the Glengariff Group and surveyed 600 likely general election voters between Aug. 31 and Sept. 3…
The University of Texas’ College Democrats chapter invited Piker to speak on campus on Sept. 30…
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) launched his first ad of the general election campaign, touting his leadership in passing school safety laws in the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 students and staff…
Democratic Majority for Israel announced on Wednesday the election of Michael Horowitz, founding partner of The Selective Group; David Kramer, a principal of Highstreet ProLaw Group; Jeffrey Stewart, founder and president of Walnut Hill Advisors; Jerry Yanowitz, former telecommunications industry executive; and Kinney Zalesne, former Microsoft executive, to its board of directors…
Bloomberg does a deep dive on the Democratic Socialists of America‘s breakout this year — 19 congressional primary wins and nearly 100 state and local victories, per a Brookings Institution study. The string of victories, the outlet suggests, puts the movement on a collision course with the party’s moderates, with Third Way planning to spend $15 million through 2028 to counter the DSA and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel arguing that the socialists are “not Democrats”…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denied reports that he was warned by the UAE ahead of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks: “If there was any relevant information, it was passed through intelligence channels between the two countries,” the PMO said…
President Donald Trump, who was briefed on the U.K.’s move to sanction Israeli settlements ahead of the announcement, did not push back, U.S. officials and Western diplomats told Axios. In addition, a White House official told the news outlet that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s remarks that the move amounted to “discrimination against the Jewish people” “were not coordinated with the White House” or State Department…
According to Israel Hayom, however, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham had initially considered a broader and harsher set of sanctions, but Washington pushed him to dial it down…
The 59th season premiere of CBS News’ “60 Minutes” this Sunday will feature an interview with one of the officers aboard an F-15 fighter jet that was shot down in April over Iran. The officer, known as “Dude 44 Bravo,” will be interviewed by correspondent Norah O’Donnell in his first on-camera sit-down…
The New York Times is soliciting reader feedback on “how Israel’s war in Gaza is affecting New Yorkers,” specifically asking Jewish respondents to let them know how their views and feelings have evolved since the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023…
As Jewish students return to K-12 classrooms and face another year marked by increased antisemitism, five major Jewish organizations — the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and StandWithUs — released a Jewish Students’ Bill of Rights…
The document outlines six standards schools should meet, including staff training on antisemitism; clear incident-reporting processes; accurate curricula on Jewish history and Israel; accommodations to treat religious observances as excused absences and avoiding scheduling school events on major Jewish holidays; protection of Jewish identity and Israel affiliation from coercion or bullying; and balanced teaching on contested issues…
LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey on Tuesday, listing between $500 million and $1 billion in liabilities, months after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — which had poured more than $5 billion into the league — announced it was ending its backing…s deputy chief of mission in Rabat, Morocco, and Nairobi, Kenya…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
From 9/11 to MAGA: Former Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Gerald Seib examines the contrast between the bipartisan political moment after 9/11 and the polarization within the country on the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks. “It isn’t hard to draw a line from 9/11 to the rise of the Make America Great Again movement of President Trump, who once falsely claimed that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the terrorist attacks. The oxygen feeding the MAGA forces is precisely the anger and dissatisfaction with the political establishment that has emerged in the years since.” [WSJ]
Labour Pains: In The Telegraph, British journalist Nicole Lampert accuses the Labour government of “audacious cynicism” over its sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “I don’t think this Government actually is filled with Jew-haters, but perhaps this is even worse: I think it is filled with people who are happy to appease Jew-haters and will do anything to make that happen. Beyond cynical … What has happened to this country where one of our most senior politicians is pushing this dangerous propaganda? Are we really going to shoot ourselves in the foot just because Labour wants to win a few more votes? Truly staggering.” [Telegraph]
Contenders’ Circle: In The Free Press, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose history of the modern Middle East, The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East, is out later this month, surveys the “tournament of power” reshaping the region since Oct. 7, 2023 — from the new Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani “Islamic NATO” to Israel’s deepening ties with Greece and India. “In sum, all of these players will contend for control of the Middle East. But none of them are strong enough to rule or dominate — a formula for fierce competition. As the Gulf monarchies seek safety from Iran and less so from Israel, their alignments are so far too flawed, contradictory, and performative to deliver the security they seek.” [The Free Press]
Picture of the Day
Met Council, America’s largest Jewish nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting poverty, distributed a record 2,016,982 pounds of kosher food to struggling families ahead of the High Holy Days. The food drive was carried out from August through September together with 162 partner organizations, including shuls, yeshivas and community tzedakah organizations. Courtesy of Met Council
Birthdays
Adam Sandler, actor, comedian, screenwriter, film producer and musician, famous for “The Chanukah Song,” turns 60
Barbara Schechter, Beverly Hills resident
Reuven Rivlin, president of Israel from 2014 to 2021, turns 87
Kenneth Lieberthal, senior fellow emeritus in the foreign policy program at The Brookings Institution, turns 83
Donald M. Berwick, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, turns 80
Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum and publisher of its Middle East Quarterly journal, turns 77
Richard Joel, president emeritus of Yeshiva University, turns 76
Nissim Ze’ev, a founder of the Shas party, he served in the Knesset for 16 years, turns 75
Martin Kramer, founding president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, he is the Walter P. Stern fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, turns 72
Steven Elworth, Brooklyn educator
Altie Karper, retired editorial director of Schocken Books (the Judaica imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is part of Penguin Random House)
Shari Arison, Israeli businesswoman and philanthropist, at times reported to be the wealthiest woman in the Middle East, turns 69
Aaron G. Frenkel, Israeli businessman, based in Monaco, he is the president of Limmud FSU, turns 69
Suzanna Stone
Jeffrey Weintraub, D.C.-based communications strategist and tactician
Eric B. Dezenhall, crisis management consultant, author and co-founder of D.C.-based PR firm Dezenhall Resources, turns 64
Lloyd Appel, founder and managing member of Alternative Asset CFO Services
Chris Coons, U.S. senator (D-DE), turns 63
Skip Kendall, professional golfer formerly on both the PGA Tour and then on the Champions Tour, turns 62
Jonathan Cohn, author and former senior national correspondent at HuffPost for 10 years, now senior national correspondent at The Bulwark, turns 57
Dov Lipman, former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, turns 55
Sacha Frédéric Litman, former partner and associate director at Boston Consulting Group, now an independent consultant
David Freedlander, features writer and political columnist for New York magazine
Zeev Farbman, Israeli entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Lightricks, turns 47
Michael B. Greenwald, director of global executive relations at Amazon Web Services
Carla Hashley, program specialist at USC’s school of architecture
Brett Perlmutter, former head of Google Cuba, now an investor and strategist
Trey Meehan, managing director at Alums for Campus Fairness
Ben Lang, co-founder of International Hummus Day in 2012, now an angel investor, he served in the IDF’s signals intelligence group, Unit 8200
Luke Hughes, fourth overall pick by the New Jersey Devils in the 2021 NHL draft, he is the son of hockey star Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, turns 23
David Ignatius: Q&A with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister – Washington Post: Q: David Ignatius: Let me begin by asking about the state of the negotiations. After your delegation left technical negotiations in Vienna on Friday, your colleague Abbas Aragchi said that the U.S. announcement of a move to strengthen enforcement of existing sanctions “is against the spirit” of the Geneva deal” and said that Iran was evaluating an “appropriate response.” Can you clarify that and explain what you think Iran’s position should be.
A: Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iranian foreign minister: We are committed to ensuring that the process that we started — and it required a lot of courage on our side to reach his agreement — will lead to a satisfactory conclusion that would address the requirements as stated in the [Geneva interim] agreement — that is, to have an enrichment program in Iran while at the same time both concerns as well as restrictions imposed by the international community will be removed. This is the objective. Since we believe our program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, we have no desire to leave any ambiguity about the exclusively peaceful nature of our program. So on our side, we believe it is very easy to reach an agreement. Of course it requires serious political will and good faith in order to reach that agreement.” [WashPost]
Iranian Foreign Minister says no trace in Iran of missing Jewish ex-FBI agent: “There are no traces in Iran of the former FBI agent who disappeared there six years ago, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday.” [Reuters] (more…)
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