Senate Republicans maintained the position on Monday that Iran should never be allowed to possess nuclear enrichment capacity, following reports that the administration had proposed a 20-year pause in enrichment — rather than a permanent end to Iran’s enrichment capacity — as part of peace talks in Islamabad over the weekend.

Last year, during diplomatic talks with the regime prior to the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear program, all but one Senate Republican signed a letter arguing that Iran should never have enrichment capacity, a position echoed by a vast majority of House Republicans. The New York Times reported Monday that Iran agreed to halt enrichment for just five years.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been a vocal proponent of the war in Iran but has also defended the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts, said on X that a 20-year pause to Iranian enrichment would not be sufficient.

“If this reporting is accurate, the idea that we would agree to a moratorium on enrichment rather than a ban on enrichment would be a mistake in my view,” Graham said on X. “Would we agree to a moratorium for al Qaeda to enrich? No. The only difference between al Qaeda and the Iranian regime is that one is a Sunni terrorist organization and the other is a Shia terrorist state.”

He said that Iran cannot be trusted and that the U.S. must hold firm to a standard of zero enrichment.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a co-lead of the letter last year, told Jewish Insider that he hadn’t seen the reports about the administration’s negotiating position and declined to comment on it specifically, but said more broadly that he does not believe that Iran has any legitimate need for enrichment.

“There’s no civilian reason for Iran to have an enrichment program,” Ricketts said. “They’re getting their uranium right now for their civilian program from Russia, and the fact that they have admitted they’ve enriched uranium to near bomb-grade potential demonstrates that this is for nuclear weapon production, not civilian use.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that Iran can’t be trusted to “stick with anything they agree to, so you have to understand that going into it.”

“But I agree with the president: no enrichment, no nuclear weapons and open up the Strait of Hormuz.”

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) said that “the preference is no enrichment.”

“Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Bottom line, end of story,” Budd said. “The 20-year pause — is that a strategic component to a greater negotiation? I can understand that. … Do they have civilian nuclear power as part of that? Can they be trusted with this current regime? I don’t think so. But again, I’m going to give a lot of leeway to the administration who wants to end nuclear capability for Iran.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) also said he has not seen the reports, but that “it should be a forever” prohibition on Iranian nuclear enrichment.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Republicans are set to discuss on Tuesday the best way to approve a supplemental funding request for the war and the proper size of the supplemental package.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told reporters that he thinks the Iran war funding should be folded into the upcoming reconciliation package — focused on immigration and border security matters — while others maintain it should be a stand-alone bill. Including the Iran funding could make passing the reconciliation package in the House more difficult.

Wicker said, “it’s a matter of vote-counting, largely.”

There are also some apparent disagreements between Republicans about what should happen if the war extends past the 60-day timeline for unilateral executive military action laid out in the War Powers Act.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that the War Powers Act deadline may be unconstitutional or unenforceable, but said “there’s nobody walking around here in the Senate going, ‘How many days do we have left?’ Nobody’s paying attention.”

But Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told reporters, “I’m sure we’ll have some sort of a vote or a statement at that [60-day] point.” 

Other Republican senators are taking a firmer stance, rejecting any war operations beyond 60 days without congressional approval.

“Here in America, constitutional limits are in place to temper the president from unilateral authority. I support the president’s actions taken in defense of American lives and interests,” Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said in a recent op-ed. “However, I will not support ongoing military action beyond a 60-day window without congressional approval.”

And Curtis said he would not support any supplemental funding for the war without congressional authorization.

Given the chance to walk back some of his most incendiary commentary on an episode of the “Pod Save America” podcast released Sunday, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker instead doubled down on his support of Hamas and other inflammatory rhetoric. 

“This [quote] is from January,” host Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter to President Barack Obama, told Piker in a segment looking back on some of Piker’s comments that have been picked up by national media. “‘Hamas is a thousand times better than a fascist settler colonial apartheid state,’” Favreau quoted.

Piker responded quickly, “I stand by that.”

Favreau then said, “[T]his is the one that bothered me most when I first heard it …. Even if you believe what happened in Gaza is genocide and what’s happening in the West Bank is apartheid, those are different claims from ‘Hamas is a thousand times better,’ because Hamas is an organization that has massacred, raped, kidnapped civilians on Oct. 7. They’ve also been catastrophic for Palestinians by almost every measure. … Do you actually mean that or is that a rhetorical move or like a solidarity signal?”

“I mean, it’s all of the above. I do mean it,” Piker responded. “I’m a lesser-evil voter and therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time.” He described Hamas as a “paramilitary organization that has like a political party as well, a politburo as well, that is entirely comprised, not as an alien force, but of orphan children that have had their parents killed by an apartheid state that has been dominating the lives of Palestinians for 80 years at this point.”

“So my perspective on this has always been that I think that Hamas’ tactics, which I oppose at times, or its like internal governance issues, are secondary to the conversation,” he continued. “And it makes me feel silly to consistently talk about what Hamas has done, especially when there has been an Oct. 7 times a thousand, if not more than a thousand at this point, in the hands of Israel against the Palestinian population in its entirety. I mean, they’re doing an Oct. 7 to Lebanon right now as we speak.”

Piker also reiterated his denunciations of Zionism, calling it “an ethno-religious supremacist ideology that is exterminationist” and comparing it to Nazism. 

The streamer invoked the often-misused claim that Albert Einstein had made the same comparison, which is based on a letter to the editor of The New York Times published on Dec. 4, 1948, signed by nearly 30 liberal intellectuals of their time, including Einstein, who called the rise of Menachem Begin’s new right-wing political party Herut, which later became part of Likud, “closely akin … to the Nazi and Fascist parties,” but did not condemn Zionism as a whole. 

About his comment that the U.S. “deserved” 9/11, Piker affirmed he believes that “we have been messing around in the Middle East for upwards of 60 years, and that’s precisely the reason why 9/11 happened, and that’s precisely the reason why these guys say ‘death to America’ in Iran, for example.” 

But, he said, “it was a heated response … and people will consistently use that against me over and over again.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore pledged that his administration “will always support Maryland’s Jewish community” in recorded remarks for an event Monday evening marking Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust memorial day, at Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Pikesville, Md., a heavily Jewish suburb of Baltimore.

The Maryland governor, a potential Democratic presidential contender, said that it is his and his state’s “governing philosophy” to “unapologetically confront and condemn antisemitism and persecution wherever it arises,” to provide no refuge to hate, denial and conspiracy theories, to ensure that everyone feels safe to worship and to “realize the full promise of tikkun olam.”

“These are difficult times, but we’ll get through them together,” Moore said.

Moore emphasized the “responsibility” of those living today to commemorate the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust “because time does not carry memory forward on its own — people do.”

“We must work together to protect our history and condemn those who would try to deny it, and we can work together to be part of a change that we hope to see in the world, especially right here in Maryland, in this moment,” Moore continued.

He said that it’s important to continue to elevate the voices of Holocaust survivors while they are still living, and that it will be the “moral responsibility of our generation and our children’s generation to never forget.”

This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz began this morning, with more than 15 American warships involved in the operation intended to pressure Iran into concessions after this weekend’s failed negotiations.

President Donald Trump said hours later that the U.S. was “called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal.” Mediators including Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey are also reportedly attempting to revive talks between the parties… 

One reported sticking point in the negotiations is a U.S. request that Iran agree not to enrich uranium for 20 years. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was highly criticized for its sunset clauses, which lifted limits on activity including uranium enrichment after 15 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked a similar timeframe at a Cabinet meeting today, saying he spoke with Vice President JD Vance yesterday who told him that the U.S. aims to ensure “there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and that could be in decades, no enrichment within Iran.” 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took issue with the timeline: “If this reporting is accurate, the idea that we would agree to a moratorium on enrichment rather than a ban on enrichment would be a mistake in my view. Would we agree to a moratorium for al Qaeda to enrich? No,” he wrote on X. “No enrichment means no enrichment”.…

Six additional Senate Democrats plan to file new war powers resolutions this week to halt the war in Iran, a move that would allow Democrats to continue forcing votes on the war for the foreseeable future, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

Previously, a different group of six Democrats introduced similar resolutions, and Democrats have called up two of them thus far, with plans to call up a third this week. The latest group of lawmakers spans from staunch progressives and critics of Israel to generally more pro-Israel members, including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Andy Kim (D-NJ)…

Citing an “increasingly sour national environment for Republicans,” the Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for four key Senate races in Democrats’ favor: The North Carolina and Georgia races now lean Democratic, the Ohio race is a toss-up and the Nebraska race is likely Republican, rather than solidly. Democrats would need to flip four seats to take back the chamber…

In another heated Senate race where Democrats hope to pick up a seat, former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) raised nearly $9 million in the first quarter of 2026, four times the amount her opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), pulled in. The GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has pledged to spend $15 million in the race, as polls show Peltola with a slight lead…

In an appearance on the “Pod Save America” podcast released yesterday, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker said he “stands by” his statement made in January that “Hamas is a thousand times better than a fascist settler-colonial apartheid state,” referring to Israel.

“I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” he said on the podcast, claiming Hamas is “entirely comprised … of orphan children that have had their parents killed by an apartheid state that has been dominating the lives of Palestinians for 80 years at this point. … Hamas’ tactics, which I oppose at times, or its like internal governance issues are secondary to this conversation”…

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) called for the federal government to “immediately” pull funding from Yale University over Yale Political Union’s decision to host Piker, who previously suggested that the senator should be killed. Piker is scheduled to speak on campus tomorrow for a debate titled “Resolved: End the American Empire.”

For Scott, Piker’s incendiary language is personal: the streamer was briefly suspended from Twitch last year after urging his followers to “kill Rick Scott.” “An elite private university that hosts an antisemite who says a Senator should be killed, capitalists should be killed, and the U.S. deserved 9/11, shouldn’t get ONE CENT from taxpayers,” Scott wrote on X on Friday… 

J Street is seeking to “set the record straight” after the group backed the growing calls among far-left lawmakers to end U.S. support for Israel’s missile-defense systems, including Iron Dome, despite its own criteria for its endorsees stating otherwise. 

In a new FAQ, the group called Iron Dome “a critically important defense system” which it “supports and consistently lobbies for.” After the end of the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel, which runs through Fiscal Year 2028, however, “financial subsidies to Israel should be rapidly and responsibly phased out. … Israel should pay for these systems”…

More Jews were killed in antisemitic incidents outside of Israel in 2025 than any year in the past three decades, according to a report from Tel Aviv University. Twenty Jews were killed last year in attacks in countries including Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., while the previous record was set in 1994 with the AMIA bombing, which killed 85 people in Buenos Aires, Argentina…

⏩ 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 a new poll assessing the partisan divide emerging among American Jews over pro-Israel political engagement.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will host a Yom HaShoah remembrance event at the Capitol, with a keynote address delivered by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Other speakers include several Holocaust survivors as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Lois Frankel (D-FL).

Amid the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group’s spring meetings being held in Washington this week, Jacob Helberg, under secretary of state for economic affairs, will speak at an event with the Atlantic Council about U.S. economic leadership in the Middle East, including utilization of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, which has been floated as an alternative trade route to the volatile Strait of Hormuz.

Stories You May Have Missed

THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL

Israelis uncertain if Iran war made them safer after ceasefire brings combat to an inconclusive halt

After the ceasefire went into effect, there was a pervading feeling in Israel that the war with Iran was not complete, and the return to routine life may be short-lived

Read more

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COMFORT FOOD

From trauma to table: An Israeli duo uses food therapy and song to foster connection

A traveling program called ‘Soul and Roll’ by singer Hananel Edri and Foodish CEO Merav Oren tells the Jewish story through an immersive culinary and musical experience

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A group of six additional Senate Democrats plan to file new war powers resolutions this week to halt the war in Iran, a move that would allow Democrats to continue forcing votes on the war for the foreseeable future. 

Previously, a different group of six Democrats introduced similar resolutions, and Democrats have called up two of them thus far, with plans to call up a third this week. So far, the resolutions have all failed along mostly party lines, with all senators remaining consistent in their votes.

The latest group of lawmakers includes Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Andy Kim (D-NJ). 

The array of lawmakers involved in the latest effort spans from staunch progressives and critics of Israel to generally more pro-Israel members. 

“President Trump chose to start a war knowing it was going to raise gas prices on Americans already struggling to get by,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “The president, and his party, just don’t care about anyone other than themselves. They lie, cheat and steal to enrich themselves and leave regular folks with the bill. It is long past time for Republicans in Congress to stand up and do their job.”

House Democrats also plan to call up a war powers resolution this week, which may pass given that some Democrats who previously opposed a war powers effort and a handful of Republicans have indicated they plan to change their votes.

The latest set of six resolutions will not be eligible for floor votes immediately, but Democrats can call up the other four resolutions introduced previously at will. Senate Democrats are also likely to force votes on matters related to the Iran war during the upcoming reconciliation process, which Republicans aim to use to fund immigration enforcement and other priorities.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) called for the federal government to “immediately” pull funding from Yale University over Yale Political Union’s decision to host Hasan Piker, an antisemitic streamer who previously suggested that the senator should be killed. Piker is scheduled to speak on campus Tuesday for a debate titled “Resolved: End the American Empire.”

Scott, who spoke last year at YPU, a storied debate society at the Ivy League university, wrote on X on Friday that “Yale receives billions from the federal government —  President Trump and Congress need to IMMEDIATELY revoke it.”

Piker, a far-left Twitch streamer, has recently been invited to speak at several high-profile events, despite a laundry list of antisemitic, anti-American and terror-supporting rhetoric, which includes justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. He has also called Orthodox Jews “inbred” and claimed America deserved 9/11. 

For Scott, Piker’s incendiary language is personal; the streamer was briefly suspended from Twitch last year after urging followers to “kill Rick Scott.” 

“An elite private university that hosts an antisemite who says a Senator should be killed, capitalists should be killed, and the U.S. deserved 9/11, shouldn’t get ONE CENT from taxpayers,” Scott wrote. 

Asked about YPU hosting Piker, a spokesperson for Yale told Jewish Insider last week ​​that “student organizations are responsible for issuing their own invitations to speakers.”

“At the same time, Yale is committed to maintaining a diverse, vibrant, and respectful community in which free expression is a fundamental value and a shared responsibility. The university is dedicated to providing a space where differing views can be expressed and heard respectfully,” the spokesperson said.

Unlike several Ivy League counterparts, including Harvard and Columbia, the Trump administration has not slashed Yale’s federal funding over antisemitism concerns. 

👋 Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how Israeli sentiment about the war in Iran could affect the country’s elections slated for later this year, and report on J Street’s decision to back calls for the end of U.S. missile-defense funding assistance to Israel. We talk to friends and former colleagues of former Rep. Eliot Engel, who died on Friday, and look at Tucker Carlson’s plummeting personal ratings amid rebukes from President Donald Trump. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mike Bloomberg, Roman Gofman and Rachel Stortch.

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

• Following the failed U.S.-Iran talks over the weekend, CENTCOM’s blockade on maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will begin at 10 a.m. ET. Read more here.
• The announcement prompted a warning from Iran that ports in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman could potentially be targeted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The White House is reportedly considering resuming limited military strikes on Iran in tandem with the blockade in an effort to further pressure Tehran. More below.
• The Helsinki Commission is holding a briefing on Capitol Hill this afternoon focused on diplomacy with the Vatican. The briefing comes amid tensions between the White House and the Holy See following Pope Leo XIV’s comments on Saturday that the “delusion of omnipotence” was driving the war with Iran. In response, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site on Sunday that the pontiff “is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” adding, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
• Semafor’s World Economy Summit kicks off today in Washington. Speakers today include Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rick Scott (R-FL), Peter Orszag and Anne Wojcicki.
• The family of former Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who died on Friday, will be sitting shiva this week in Riverdale, N.Y. Read our obituary for the longtime New York congressman below. 
• Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, begins at sunset. Communities in Israel and around the world will hold remembrance events. In Jerusalem, Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center will air a prerecorded state ceremony that will include speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.
• The House will potentially hold several expulsion votes this week, following a San Francisco Chronicle report that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) had sexually assaulted female staffers. The report prompted calls for the House to take action against Swalwell, who suspended his gubernatorial bid on Sunday following the report, and three other House members — Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Cory Mills (R-FL) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) — over allegations of misconduct.
• In Hungary, Péter Magyar’s center-right opposition Tisza party appears poised to secure a supermajority following Sunday’s elections. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has led the central European nation since 2010 — and who had the tacit backing of Netanyahu — conceded to Magyar on Sunday evening. Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid congratulated Magyar on his victory, saying that he hoped relations between Jerusalem and Budapest “will continue to deepen and strengthen” under Magyar’s leadership.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MARC ROD

As U.S. discourse about Israel has become increasingly polarized and the left has grown increasingly hostile to the Jewish state, support for Israel’s missile-defense systems that protect the lives of millions of civilians remained a popular bipartisan priority.

Even among many progressives who were otherwise critical of Israel, U.S. aid for systems such as Iron Dome remained a rare exception, with most praising the system as an important protection measure for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Emblematic of that fact: Just four House Democrats and two Republicans voted last year in favor of cutting $500 million in cooperative missile-defense funding that the U.S. provides to Israel annually.

But in the wake of the wars in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, that consensus appears to be shifting quickly on the left. A growing number of progressive candidates — along with J Street, the left-wing Israel advocacy group — are now racing to disavow all military support for Israel, including for defensive systems such as the Iron Dome.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most prominent progressive standard-bearers, has been a trendsetter on the issue. She said earlier this month that she would not support any funding for Israeli missile defense going forward, after previously vociferously defending her vote against last year’s amendment cutting missile defense as a clear and easy choice.

Her reversal on the issue came amid criticism and pressure from Democratic Socialistsof America members over that vote, as the far-left group debated whether to endorse her once more in her upcoming reelection bid.

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

POLITICAL BACKLASH

Netanyahu defensive as weekend polls show his coalition losing support

Amid the ceasefire with Iran, new Israeli polls were split on the outcome for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and coalition ahead of the country’s election slated for later this year. Three television polls showed Netanyahu losing significant support as a result of the unpopularity of the ceasefire, while polls from two right-leaning networks projected he would still have a majority in the Knesset to form a coalition, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

Pushing back: During a televised statement on Saturday night, Netanyahu argued that the results of the war against Iran had been positive, and the ceasefire may not be final: “There are people who say ‘we have no achievements.’ There are giant achievements.” Netanyahu said, “The campaign is not yet over, but even now it can be clearly stated: We have achieved historic accomplishments. Iran tried to squeeze us in a stranglehold; Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran itself. They wanted to choke us, and we are choking them. … Those who threatened to destroy us are now fighting for their own survival.” 

Read the full story here.

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WINDS OF CHANGE

J Street backs far-left calls to end U.S. missile-defense aid to Israel

J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy organization which describes itself as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group, offered backing for the growing calls among far-left lawmakers to end U.S. support for Israel’s missile-defense systems, such as Iron Dome, which until recently had been largely spared even by strident critics of the Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: “What progressives are saying is not radical, and in fact, [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are arguing the same thing. Israel is capable of paying for its own military equipment, including supplies for its missile defense systems,” a J Street spokesperson told JI.

Read the full story here.

U-turn: Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a bitterly contested June primary, called for ending all U.S. aid to Israel during an interview published Friday, reversing his prior support for funding to bolster Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports.

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CHOICE OF WORDS

Elissa Slotkin warns against equating Jewish donors with ‘Israel lobby’

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has lately been saying that she does not take money from AIPAC or any corporate political action committees. So when a college student asked her at a town hall in Cincinnati on Thursday about $4.5 million she has received from “pro-Israel lobbies,” Slotkin pushed back — arguing the student was unfairly lumping together all Jewish donors, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Detuch reports.

What she said: “I’m not sure what you’re referring to on ‘not AIPAC but the Israel lobby.’ If you’re equating ‘Israel lobby’ to Jews, I got a problem with that,” Slotkin said. Slotkin said that just as Iranian Americans, for instance, may not agree with everything the Iranian government does, “I think it’s really important, especially now, to make a distinction between the Israeli government and the choices that they’re making and the average Jew, OK, and Jewish people who donate to campaigns,” Slotkin said, earning applause from the audience. 

Read the full story here.

Ramped up rhetoric: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro accused President Donald Trump of being “bullied” into starting a war with Iran, suggesting in an interview with the “All-In Podcast” that Israel had pressured the U.S. into joining a military campaign against the Islamic Republic. 

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TUCKER TROUBLES

Tucker Carlson’s personal ratings nosedive, as Trump slams his former ally

Tucker Carlson, the anti-Israel and antisemitic podcaster whose outspoken opposition to the Iran war has strained his relationship with President Donald Trump, has seen his personal ratings nosedive including among Republicans, according to a new YouGov poll. The survey, commissioned by UMass-Lowell between March 26-30, finds Carlson’s overall favorability rating at a dismal 17%, with 38% viewing him unfavorably. Nearly one-third of respondents said they had no opinion of him, and 15% had never heard of him, Jewish Insider’s Josh Kraushaar reports.

Survey says: Among Republicans, Carlson’s favorability rating is now just at 31%, with 24% viewing him unfavorably, and 35% offering no opinion. (For context, a Manhattan Institute poll of Republicans conducted in December 2025 found 63% of Republicans viewed Carlson favorably, with 21% viewing him unfavorably.)

Read the full story here.

Booking it: Skyhorse Publishing is launching a new imprint with Tucker Carlson in partnership with the Tucker Carlson Network; the imprint is set to publish books from Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Russell Brand and far-right influencer Milo Yiannopoulos.

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IN MEMORIAM

Former Rep. Eliot Engel, Foreign Affairs Committee chair and stalwart supporter of Israel, dies at 79

Former Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who represented the Bronx and Westchester County in the House from 1988 to 2020 and served for years as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, died Friday at age 79, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Retrospective: Engel, who was Jewish, rose to become the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Democrats retook the House in 2018, after serving as the ranking member from 2013 to 2018. He was a strong and vocal advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Jewish community, also acting as a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force. But he was defeated in the 2020 election by far-left former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), with Engel’s support for Israel becoming a primary issue in the race — an early harbinger of subsequent trends in the Democratic Party.

Read the full obituary here.

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COMFORT FOOD

From trauma to table: An Israeli duo uses food therapy and song to foster connection

Israeli singer Hananel Edri discovered his love for food and his family’s Moroccan traditions in his grandmother’s kitchen, where he found solace after the trauma of a rocket strike on his family home in Kiryat Shmona, near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, at age 10. Meanwhile, Merav Oren — founder and CEO of Foodish, the culinary department of Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum of the Jewish People — grew up between Atlanta and Israel, rooted in a different culinary tradition: Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. This year, the two brought their worlds together to form “Soul and Roll,” a new immersive culinary and musical experience, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Cooking up connection: “We talk, Hananel sings and at the end people do a hands-on experience making ma’amoul,” a traditional Middle Eastern pastry often served at Mimouna, the Moroccan-Jewish celebration to mark the end of Passover, Oren told JI on Sunday at an event to launch Foodish’s international expansion. Held at the Washington home of documentary filmmaker Aviva Kempner, some two dozen attendees got a taste of a Soul and Roll show, including Edri’s rendition of “Jerusalem of Gold” and a Moroccan song dedicated to his grandmother, followed by a lesson in making date-filled ma’amoul pastries to bring home.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Strait Talk: The Wall Street Journal’s Benoit Faucon does a deep dive into how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps maintains control over the Strait of Hormuz through underground pens, waterborne drones and other technology. “[Iran’s] regular navy operated Iran’s big battleships largely for prestige and occasional long-range deployments. The paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on the other hand, has its own extensive fleet of more nimble boats designed to control the crucial waterway with missiles, mines and harassment of commercial ships — and they are much harder to reach.” [WSJ]

Pressure Point: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius considers the implications of the failed U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, over the weekend and President Donald Trump’s threatened blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. “The blockade is a pressure tactic, to be sure, but not primarily a military one. Trump has no appetite for further armed conflict. He knows that the upsides are limited and the ‘tail risk,’ as financial traders like to say, is large. His aim instead is to put a severely battered Iran into an economic vise to see if its leaders will set a different course in a big, comprehensive deal.” [WashPost]

Hungary for Change: The Times of Israel’s Nava Frieberg looks at how Peter Magyar’s victory in Sunday’s elections in Hungary could affect Budapest’s support for Israel in the European Union. “But while Orban’s support has been politically significant, Hungary’s practical impact on EU policy has been more limited than often assumed, and a change in Hungarian leadership is unlikely to radically shift bilateral relations, experts say. … While Orban’s government has taken significant measures to support Israel in international forums, its ability to block EU moves against Israel has affected rhetoric more than policy, a European diplomat familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.” [TOI]

Word on the Street

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam postponed his trip to the U.S., which was slated to begin yesterday, citing the security situation in Lebanon; the postponement comes ahead of a planned meeting this week in Washington between Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa…

The State Department revoked the green cards of three relatives of an Iranian regime official who served as a spokesperson for the militants who held American citizens captive during the 1979-1980 Iran hostage crisis… 

Two federal immigration judges who presided over the government’s failed efforts to deport college students Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi over their anti-Israel activism were fired by the Trump administration; Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, who were both appointed by the Biden administration and were nearing the end of their probationary periods, were fired as part of a broader dismissal of dozens of immigration judges…

The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil’s attempt to dismiss his deportation case on Thursday, his lawyers said, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Andy Ogles (R-TN), Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) introduced a bill to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a terrorist group…

Rep. George Latimer (D-NY) introduced a bill to nullify the Trump administration’s oil sanctions relief for Iranian vessels…

Antisemitic conspiracy theorist Dan Bilzerian filed paperwork to challenge Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) in the Republican primary in Florida’s 6th Congressional District…

Politico explores the challenges facing the Democratic National Committee’s Middle East working group, days after the DNC’s rules committee rejected anti-Israel and anti-AIPAC resolutions at the group’s New Orleans gathering…

The Yale Political Union is slated to host antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker on campus on Tuesday for a debate titled “Resolved: End the American Empire,” according to the organization’s social media, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Town & Country spotlights the book events being hosted at former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies headquarters, which has “become the place in New York to have a book party, one that regularly attracts power players simply by nature of the host”… 

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps’ business successes as the company and its leadership lean into social justice causes; the Journal notes that David Bronner, who serves as the company’s cosmic engagement officer, traveled to Israel and the West Bank last year and blasted the “military apartheid rule” in the enclave…

Police in San Francisco arrested a 20-year-old man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how upheaval among staff at the streaming startup Mubi over the company’s deal with Sequoia Capital — owing in part to Sequoia’s investments with startups that work with the IDF and the social media posts of Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire — resulted in a decline in subscriptions and an exodus of employees…

New York state Sen. Jack Martins, a pro-Israel Republican, announced he will not seek reelection to his Long Island seat…

Cisco is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli cybersecurity startup Astrix Security in a deal potentially worth $350 million…

Israel barred Spain from accessing the Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat that is being used to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza, with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar saying that Madrid has “such a blatant anti-Israeli bias that it has lost any ability to serve as a useful actor in implementing” the ceasefire plan…

Days later, Israel’s Foreign Ministry summoned Francisca María Pedrós Carretero, Spain’s chargé d’affaires, after the Spanish town of El Burgo blew up an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of its annual Easter event…

Nine foreign carriers, including Etihad and Ethiopian Airlines, are set to resume service to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport this week…

The IDF announced it killed one of the Hamas terrorists who took hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alon Ohel, Eliya Cohen and Or Levy from a roadside bomb shelter during the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks…

Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman was approved to be the next head of the Mossad; Gofman, the military secretary to Netanyahu, will assume the role on June 2…

New York Solidarity Network named Rachel Stortch, the COO of Fifth Avenue Synagogue and a former Missouri lawmaker, as its first CEO; NYSN Board Chair Gary Ginsberg called Stortch “a rare combination of electoral strategist and community builder”…

Fred Drasner, the former co-publisher of the New York Daily News, died at 83…

Pic of the Day

Singer Noga Erez on Saturday became the first Israeli artist to perform at the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Addressing the crowd during her set, Erez said, “I come from a very, very, very complex part of this planet, and to get us all here doing this was kind of like forces that I didn’t know that I had.” 

Birthdays

Longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and the bandleader for “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” Max Weinberg turns 75… 

Curator and then director of the Louvre until 2001, he is the son-in-law of the late Alain de Rothschild, Pierre Rosenberg turns 90… Geneticist and 1985 Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, Michael Stuart Brown turns 85… Author and feminist leader, she is the former CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Gloria Feldt turns 84… Managing director at Tiedemann Advisors, he was previously a vice chair at Goldman Sachs and a high-ranking State Department official, Robert D. “Bob” Hormats turns 83… Retired member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA) after 10 terms, Susan Carol Alpert Davis turns 82… VP of the New Israel Fund, Paul Egerman… Actor who won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Vincent in the television series “Beauty and the Beast,” Ron Perlman turns 76… Partner in Uplands Real Estate Partners, Deborah Ratner Salzberg… Former member of the U.K. Parliament until 2005, she served as the U.K.’s first ever minister of state for asylum and immigration under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, Barbara Margolis Roche turns 72… Co-founder of Highbridge Capital Management, a hedge fund based in NYC, and a founding board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, Glenn Dubin turns 69… Author of six books and co-host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily global independent news hour, Amy Goodman turns 69… Art historian, philanthropist and author of the KosherLikeMe website, Liz Rueven… U.S. senator (D-PA) until last year, Bob Casey, Jr. turns 66… Former orthopedic surgeon, he was the Democratic nominee for the 2020 U.S. Senate election in Alaska, Alan Stuart Gross turns 64… President Donald Trump’s nominee for chair of the Federal Reserve, he was the youngest-ever Federal Reserve governor until 2011, Kevin Warsh turns 56… Lead vocalist and founding member of the rock group “Staind,” he has also enjoyed a successful solo career in country music, Aaron Lewis turns 54… CEO and executive director of D.C.-based Sixth & I, a center for arts, entertainment and ideas, Heather Moran… Staff writer at Tablet Magazine, Armin Rosen… Senior director of government relations at FDD Action, Alexandria Paolozzi… General partner at Overmatch Ventures, Morgan Hitzig… Senior consultant at Gray Ink, Lauren Epstein Schwartz… Sales executive at Sign Source NJ, Aharon Lipnitsky… Helene Cash…

As U.S. discourse about Israel has become increasingly polarized and the left has grown increasingly hostile to the Jewish state, support for Israel’s missile-defense systems that protect the lives of millions of civilians remained a popular bipartisan priority.

Even among many progressives who were otherwise critical of Israel, U.S. aid for systems such as Iron Dome remained a rare exception, with most praising the system as an important protection measure for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Emblematic of that fact: Just four House Democrats and two Republicans voted last year in favor of cutting $500 million in cooperative missile-defense funding that the U.S. provides to Israel annually.

But in the wake of the wars in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, that consensus appears to be shifting quickly on the left. A growing number of progressive candidates — along with J Street, the left-wing Israel advocacy group — are now racing to disavow all military support for Israel, including for defensive systems such as the Iron Dome.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most prominent progressive standard-bearers, has been a trendsetter on the issue. She said earlier this month that she would not support any funding for Israeli missile defense going forward, after previously vociferously defending her vote against last year’s amendment cutting missile defense as a clear and easy choice.

Her reversal on the issue came amid criticism and pressure from Democratic Socialists of America members over that vote, as the far-left group debated whether to endorse her once more in her upcoming reelection bid.

Ocasio-Cortez argued that Israel is fully financially capable of funding Iron Dome and other defensive systems itself  — pointing in part to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments earlier this year that he wants to wind down U.S. aid to Israel, which have proven to be a thorn in the side of some pro-Israel advocates.

She was quickly followed by another prominent progressive Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who also harbors presidential ambitions, and other left-wing candidates. Another abrupt about-face on the issue came from former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who came out in support of Iron Dome funding during his 2025 mayoral campaign, but is now opposing it as he runs to the left of Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a congressional primary.

Michael Blake, the far-left challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), also said he would continue to support Iron Dome funding just months ago, but has now flip-flopped to oppose it. Meanwhile, Torres doubled down on his support for Iron Dome funding in a post on social media over the weekend, saying, “I will never join that bandwagon—no matter how politically expedient it may become. Even the world’s most committed pacifist should have no objection to Iron Dome. It is purely defensive. It does not attack anyone. It simply intercepts projectiles that would otherwise strike homes, hospitals, schools, and synagogues. Its sole purpose is to prevent mass murder.”

Strikingly, J Street, which frames itself as a pro-Israel group, is echoing the same rhetoric used by far-left lawmakers like Ocasio-Cortez. “What progressives are saying is not radical, and in fact, Benjamin Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham are arguing the same thing. Israel is capable of paying for its own military equipment, including supplies for its missile defense systems,” a J Street spokesperson told JI.

That stance is at odds with J Street PAC’s own endorsement criteria for candidates, as displayed on its website as of Friday afternoon. J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami said in a Sunday Substack post that he wants to see U.S. direct aid and subsidies to Israel ended “responsibl[y] yet rapid[ly]” upon the conclusion of the current U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, but that the U.S. should continue to sell and co-develop defensive systems to Israel, subject to Israeli compliance with U.S. arms sales law.

Systems like Iron Dome are also co-produced by the U.S. and Israel, and similar arrangements would likely continue even if direct U.S. financial aid to Israel was ended in the short term.

And as the consensus among the left shifts, some anti-Israel Democratic candidates are pushing the envelope even further. Saikat Chakrabarti, a far-left candidate running for retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) San Francisco House seat, said Thursday that “ending funding isn’t enough — we need sanctions.” Chakrabarti previously served as Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff.

There are signs that some more moderate lawmakers are also feeling the pressure from the left amid the declining support for Israel within the Democratic party: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who last year rejected efforts to block U.S. arms sales to Israel, said last week he’ll now oppose offensive aid while saying he views missile-defense support differently — a similar position to the one that progressives like Ocasio-Cortez and Lander held just months ago.

Israeli singer Hananel Edri discovered his love for food and his family’s Moroccan traditions in his grandmother’s kitchen, where he found solace after the trauma of a rocket strike on his family home in Kiryat Shmona, near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, at age 10.

Meanwhile, Merav Oren — founder and CEO of Foodish, the culinary department of Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum of the Jewish People — grew up between Atlanta and Israel, rooted in a different culinary tradition: Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. 

This year, the two brought their worlds together to form “Soul and Roll,” a new immersive culinary and musical experience designed by Oren and Edri — a self-proclaimed “foodie” and singer who has performed on some of Israel’s most prestigious stages including Habima National Theatre. “We talk, Hananel sings and at the end people do a hands-on experience making ma’amoul,” a traditional Middle Eastern pastry often served at Mimouna, the Moroccan-Jewish celebration to mark the end of Passover, Oren told Jewish Insider on Sunday at an event to launch Foodish’s international expansion.  

Held at the Washington home of documentary filmmaker Aviva Kempner, some two dozen attendees got a taste of a Soul and Roll show, including Edri’s rendition of “Jerusalem of Gold” and a Moroccan song dedicated to his grandmother, followed by a lesson in making date-filled ma’amoul pastries to bring home. The invitation-only event also featured remarks from Israeli chef and food writer Vered Guttman and Jewish cookbook author Joan Nathan.  

“Anu strengthens the Jewish belonging through history and art. We at Foodish do that through food — we tell the story of the Jewish people through food, through events and festivals,” said Oren.      

Edri and Oren, both of whom reside in Tel Aviv, met during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, working with Jewish communities through food and music, just days before the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. After Hamas’ massacre, the pair reunited to lead food therapy workshops.

“Just after Oct. 7 we went down to the south where evacuees were staying and started doing culinary workshops with them,” Oren recalled on Sunday. One moment that still stands out to her, she said, was when she began doing dishes after the workshop and an evacuee insisted on helping because what she missed most about home was “the basic stuff like washing dishes, baking or cooking.”

Also in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, Foodish ran a pop-up exhibition with 14 of the leading chefs in Israel, including Eyal Shani, pairing each with a famous Israeli artist. Each illustrator designed artwork for a chef coat based on the chef’s personal story, which was then sold in an exhibition. Funds raised went towards expanding the food therapy workshops. 

Foodish has since launched several other programs, including one that invites high school students to taste cultural, and sometimes unpopular foods like chopped liver, “that are kind of disgusting, but through that we tell the story of specific communities,” said Oren. 

Another program designed to alleviate loneliness among the elderly sends volunteers to their homes and to document their history as they cook together. “Then we have an event where they invite their families, go onstage and tell their stories. The food helps them tell their stories, which otherwise probably no one would have asked them about,” said Oren.  

The newest projects, which Oren said are “going global,” include Soul and Roll, as well as one designed for schools that focuses on teenagers and young adults to assist them in documenting their family’s food stories, both online and in print.   

“All of these are examples that explain to us food is not just food, it’s so much more engaging. We deal with Jewish identity through food,” said Oren. “We want to take what we do to Jewish communities all over the world.”

Noting Israel’s war with Iran and the countless hours they have spent in Tel Aviv bomb shelters over the past month, both Oren and Edri said that the launch of Foodish’s latest programs comes amid a challenging period. 

“This is a difficult time for us. Growing up, the rocket situation was my reality,” said Edri. “Today, I live in Tel Aviv and we are facing the same reality. Doing what we do, and to be able to come here and share our stories with you, is even more important [than ever] for me because we are strong only if we stay together. Our existence really depends on each other,” he told the American Jewish audience. 

Although the war forced the cancellation of two of their three scheduled shows in Israel, Edri told JI that Soul and Roll is persevering, adding, “It’s difficult, but we’re getting it out there.” The pair’s trip to the U.S. also included a Mimouna show in New York.

“My background is mainly onstage and I’m a big foodie,” continued Edri, adding that what draws him to the program is the combination of “kitchen, memories, Jewish identity brought all together with music and what Anu does, and people leaving with cookies, music they can sing to and memories.” 

Edri, who runs his own culinary-musical web series called “Cooking with Hananel,” shared the reason each Soul and Roll show begins with the same song, “Jerusalem of Gold,” the iconic Israeli tune written by Naomi Shemer in 1967: “Merav’s family came from Poland, my family came from Morocco,” he said. “Our grandmothers were in very different situations and settings, but they all prayed and longed for the same place, which is Jerusalem.” 

Amid the ceasefire with Iran, new Israeli polls were split on the outcome for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and coalition. Three television polls showed Netanyahu losing significant support as a result of the unpopularity of the ceasefire, while polls from two right-leaning networks projected he would still have a majority in the Knesset to form a coalition. 

The election is currently slated for the end of October. Israeli Channels 12, 13 and Kan 11 projected Netanyahu’s coalition would not receive enough votes to stay in power, but they also found that center-left parties — excluding Arab parties, which most Zionist parties have said would not be invited to join their coalition — would not get the 61-seat majority to form a winning coalition. 

Channels 14 and i24NEWS news projected that the coalition would be able to remain in power, but with a smaller majority than it received in 2022, as it has consistently received in polling since then.

Netanyahu appeared defensive in a televised statement on Saturday night, during which he argued that the results of the nearly six-week war against Iran had been positive, and the ceasefire may not be final: “There are people who say ‘we have no achievements.’ There are giant achievements.”

“The campaign is not yet over, but even now it can be clearly stated: We have achieved historic accomplishments,” Netanyahu continued. “Iran tried to squeeze us in a stranglehold; Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran itself. They wanted to choke us, and we are choking them. … Those who threatened to destroy us are now fighting for their own survival.” 

Netanyahu went on to list the war’s achievements: “We succeeded in crushing the nuclear program, crushing the missile program,” and brought Iran’s regime “to its lowest, weakest level since the establishment of the regime 47 years ago.” He also listed dozens of senior officials and military commanders who had been killed by Israel and weapons sites that had been destroyed.

Still, the prime minister acknowledged that the enriched uranium in Iran must be removed “either … by agreement, or it will come out in other ways.”

Netanyahu also spoke at length about negotiations with Lebanon as the IDF continued operations against Hezbollah. He said the talks would be about the disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist group and “a real peace agreement” with Beirut.

In polls released the night before, Israeli channels 12 and 13 and public broadcaster Kan found that a narrow majority of Israelis (from 51% to 56%) said they oppose the two-week ceasefire with Iran. In addition, in a poll published Sunday by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, 61% of Israelis opposed the ceasefire, and less than a third (31%) said they believed that the Iranian regime was significantly harmed in the war. 

Elie Pieprz, an international political consultant who has worked on Likud campaigns, argued that Netanyahu doesn’t need the war to come to a conclusively positive end for Israel for him to use it to his political advantage.

“The prime minister has always thrived when something tantalizing is very close, and [he can say] ‘if you just give me another term, I can bring this home,” Pieprz said. “I think regime change [in Iran] is exactly one of those things.”

Conversely, Nilly Richman, a strategist who has worked with President Isaac Herzog and launched Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, told Jewish Insider that “there is no doubt that Netanyahu is stressed, and he is broadcasting it.” 

According to Richman, the stress comes from the fact that “the polls aren’t bringing [Netanyahu] to the point he hoped to be in after this war” and that he will have to testify again in the corruption trials against him this week, now that Israel is no longer in a state of emergency.

According to Kan’s poll, the current coalition parties were projected to receive 51 seats, while Zionist opposition parties got 59. Likud received 25 seats, down from 28 in the previous week’s polls, while former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s yet-unnamed party was steady at 19.

On Channel 12, Israel’s most-watched news broadcast, Likud was projected to drop to 25 from 27 last week, and Bennett to rise from 20 to 22 seats. The coalition would get 50 seats, and the Zionist opposition 60, according to the poll.

In Channel 13’s poll, the coalition got 54 seats and the Zionist opposition received 55. Likud received 22 seats, up from 25 last week, and Bennett went from 18 to 21.

Newer, more right-leaning channels 14 and i24 News, however, showed Netanyahu would be able to form a majority coalition with his current partners. They did not ask about support for the ceasefire.

In i24’s poll, Likud received 32 seats and former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar Party led the opposition with 14 seats. The coalition would win 64 seats and the Zionist opposition received 45.

Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, whose pollster, former Netanyahu aide Shlomo Filber, most accurately predicted the results of the last election, found that the right-wing bloc received 66 seats while the Zionist opposition received 42. The poll also gave Likud 36 seats and Bennett’s party 10, with Yashar leading the Zionist opposition with 11 seats.

Filber’s poll was also the only one asking about the Joint List — a bloc of all four Arab parties, which they have said they plan to form — rather than polling them as the two separate blocs they have in the current Knesset – and found that the singular bloc received 12 seats, more than any Zionist opposition party.

Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s party did not pass the electoral threshold in any of the polls, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s party passed it in the polls from Channels 13 and 14 and i24.

Pieprz said that “polls taken six months out [to the election] are not super-relevant, [though] there is value to tracking polls.”

Richman argued that “polls taken a moment after something happened are meaningless. It takes a moment for everything to sink in.” She also noted that “people want to see what will happen in two weeks,” when the current ceasefire with Iran is due to expire.

However, she pointed to a poll Channel 12 took of residents of Israel’s north as especially significant. Residents of the north are worth about 35 Knesset seats, and continue to be attacked by Hezbollah multiple times a day. The poll found that 70% of them — including a third of those who voted for the coalition in the last election — give the government a bad grade in dealing with their issues. While in 2022, the number of coalition and Zionist opposition voters in the north were about even, the Zionist opposition is now leading in the north by eight points.

Richman estimated that “three to four seats could move between the blocs.”

Much of that movement is from Likud to former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beytenu party, which is “on the right, but against Bibi,” Reichman said. She said that Liberman has kept his distance from the center-left and right-wing blocs, saying that he can be part of a coalition without Haredim or Arabs or the left-wing Democrats Party, a claim that appeals to moderate right-wing voters.

Pieprz said that, in line with Liberman’s more independent messaging, he may be signaling that he would be willing to join a coalition with Netanyahu but without Haredi parties, and that Netanyahu may be willing to do that rather than enter another cycle of multiple consecutive elections. “I don’t think Bibi will feel indebted to the Haredim,” he said.

Richman said moderate right-wing voters who don’t want to vote for Netanyahu are not moving toward Bennett, who is hawkish and holds right-wing positions on settlements, the economy and more. “Bennett will have to betray the left so that the right will forgive him” for forming a coalition with left-wing parties and an Arab party in 2021, she argued.

Pieprz said that Bennett is “moving in a downward trend” in the polls, and that “people in the opposition express frustration that he’s not going after voters on the right, and instead trying to concretize a base on the left, creating a problematic dynamic. I don’t think he can maintain it for six months.”

Pieprz noted that there has been a lot of infighting within the Zionist opposition, especially between Eisenkot and Bennett for dominance in the bloc.While calling the infighting “a bad look, they will never win that way,” he said they “have enough time to reconfigure and get on the same page and act in a way that shows the Israeli public that there is a legitimate alternative to Netanyahu.”  

He posited that Netanyahu “is in relatively good shape, primarily because there is not a robust and developed opposition. … People supporting the prime minister are pretty solid. It would take a lot to dislodge [their votes]. In the opposition, there is fluidity.” 

Pieprz, however, said that Netanyahu “squeezed out a lot of the political benefit of the war itself” — such as passing a budget that will allow his coalition to survive months longer than it may have — “and now he has to frame [the war] properly over the next six months. … He can make that case ‘allow me and the team that got us to this point to push it over the top.’”

Richman noted that the successful attacks on Iran’s nuclear program during last year’s 12-day war did not impact Netanyahu’s political standing much, but projected that after this war, the prime minister is likely to decline further in the polls.

“Bibi built [a monster] that ate him,” she said. “If Iran is so scary … Well, [Israel] attacked Iran and not much happened to us, Israel wasn’t destroyed, so we don’t need [Netanyahu] anymore. It’s like [former UK Prime Minister] Winston Churchill” — who lost an election right after World War II and Netanyahu is known to admire — “Be careful what you wish for, Bibi.” 

The U.S. will begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump announced on Sunday, hours after negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, ended without reaching an agreement.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that “other countries will be involved with this blockade.”

Trump called Iran’s claim that it had lost track of the mines it dropped in the strait “world extortion.”

In addition, the president said that any vessel that pays Iran a toll to enter the strait will be interdicted and that “Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION.”

As to the negotiations, Trump wrote, “There is only one thing that matters, IRAN IS UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS! … They were very unyielding as to the single most important issue.” 

Nuclear power cannot “be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people… IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump added.

He also indicated military action will resume: “At an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran,” he wrote.

Soon after, Trump told Fox News that the Iranians “haven’t left the bargaining table. I predict they come back and give us everything we want, and I told my people, ‘I want everything. I don’t want 90%, I don’t 95%.’ I told them, ‘I want everything.’ They have no cards. Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, totally gone.” 

Earlier Sunday, Vice President JD Vance departed Islamabad after 20 hours of talks with Iranian negotiators. 

“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” Vance said at a press conference shortly before his departure. “So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.” 

Vance said he made “a very simple proposal” that was “our final and best offer.” Under the terms of Vance’s proposal, Iran would have been required to make an “affirmative commitment” not to seek a nuclear weapon or the tools to do so. The vice president said the U.S. was leaving its last proposal on the table as he left for Washington: “We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”

At the same time, he said the U.S. had been flexible and negotiated in good faith.

The vice president did not mention in his press conference Iran’s promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire, nor any demands relating to Iran’s ballistic missiles or funding of proxies, and declined to respond to a question as to the status of the ceasefire.

Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and negotiator with the U.S., wrote on X that his team had “no trust in the opposing side. My colleagues on the Iranian delegation raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation.” 

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, whose country hosted the talks, said it was “imperative” to continue the ceasefire despite the failure of the first round of negotiations to reach a resolution. 

Ahead of the talks, Iran released its own ceasefire proposal that included continued control over the Strait of Hormuz, a ceasefire that would include Lebanon and the cancellation of primary and secondary sanctions. Iran also demanded their “acceptance of enrichment” of uranium. 

Former Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who represented the Bronx and Westchester County in the House from 1988 to 2020 and served for years as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, died Friday at age 79.

Engel, who was Jewish, rose to become the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Democrats retook the House in 2018, after serving as the ranking member from 2013 to 2018. He was a strong and vocal advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Jewish community, also acting as a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force.

But he was defeated in the 2020 election by far-left former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), with Engel’s support for Israel becoming a primary issue in the race — an early harbinger of subsequent trends in the Democratic Party.

In an exit interview with Jewish Insider in 2020, Engel said that he had committed himself throughout his career to being “the best friend that Israel ever had in Congress, and I think that I have kept up that bargain,” arguing that the U.S.-Israel relationship was stronger than ever. Engel’s stalwart support of Israel is now increasingly uncommon in a Democratic Party that’s becoming more critical of the Jewish state.

In 2020, he called conditioning aid to Israel “just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Engel broke at times with his party on issues related to the Middle East and the Jewish community, including being one of the few House Democrats to vote in 2015 against the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

He also helped lead the first impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who served for years alongside Engel, told JI that Engel was “one of my greatest colleagues and dearest friends in Congress — a true progressive, a lifelong Democrat, and a tireless champion for the people of the Bronx, Rockland, and Westchester.” 

“As Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he brought integrity and experience to America’s role in the world, and he was an unwavering friend to Israel throughout his decades of service,” Nadler continued. “His legacy of service to the Bronx, Rockland, Westchester, and the nation will not be forgotten.”

“Serving alongside Eliot Engel was one of the great privileges of my time in Congress. Eliot combined deep moral clarity with an unwavering commitment to America’s alliances, especially the U.S.–Israel relationship,” former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who now leads the American Jewish Committee, told JI. “He led the Foreign Affairs Committee with principle, steadiness, and a genuine respect for colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I was proud to call him not only a colleague, but a friend.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Engel was “a champion for the people he was privileged to represent in the Bronx and Westchester County.”

“The grandson of Jews fleeing czarist Russia and a proud son of New York City, Eliot’s career in public service was inspired by his deep roots,” Jeffries said. “Eliot was an astute and prolific legislator who fought for human rights, civil rights and against antisemitism here at home and abroad.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Engel was a “true public servant who delivered for the people of his beloved Bronx and Westchester for 30 years — and a dear friend going back to when I first met him as a district leader in the Bronx.”

He praised Engel’s leadership of the Foreign Affairs Committee “with a rare blend of conviction, effectiveness, and kindness that has cemented him as one of the great diplomatic leaders of the 21st century.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) said in a statement that Engel was “a mensch and a truly patriotic American.”

“He was one of the first Members of Congress to take me under his wing when I was just a candidate in 2012. After my election, it was a privilege and honor to serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee with Eliot as Ranking Member, working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to promote our country’s interests and advance our national security,” Schneider continued. “Throughout our service together, I got to know a real leader who never gave up on the United States and knew in his heart that Americans have so much more in common than what might set us apart.”

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), another longtime member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Engel as a “fighter for democracy and human rights around the world,” highlighting their work together on the Caesar Civilian Protection Act sanctions on the Assad regime in Syria and their support for the Syrian people.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin said, “Eliot Engel proudly served New Yorkers in Congress. As a proud member of the Jewish community and the son of immigrants, he represented the best of … America’s promise.”

Rep. George Latimer (D-NY), who ousted Bowman in 2024, said that Engel, “devoted his lifetime to public service — as a teacher and as an elected official in Albany and Washington DC. His legacy consists of hard work on issues and kindness to all.”

AIPAC, in a statement, called Engel “a steadfast friend of the pro‑Israel community and an unabashed champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

“Throughout his distinguished 32‑year career in Congress, including as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Engel worked tirelessly to strengthen and deepen the strategic alliance between the United States and Israel,” the group said, praising him as a “leading force against efforts to delegitimize our ally Israel.”

“He led critical efforts to support security assistance to Israel, worked to impose sanctions on the Iranian regime, opposed efforts to impose political cuts or conditions on aid, rejected the BDS campaign, and courageously opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal,” the group continued.

Local leaders who spoke to JI remembered Engel as an ever-present and deeply caring lawmaker who was always accessible both to the Jewish community and all of the communities he represented in Congress.

New York state Rep. Jeffrey Dinowitz said that Engel had been not only a professional colleague but a close personal friend for most of his life, with their families and children growing up together.

“We were the closest of friends for decades, literally decades. So it’s a horrible loss for the family and for the other people close to him,” Dinowitz said. “He does leave behind a great legacy — just the people that they helped. There’s no question that his office and sometimes he personally, they helped tens of thousands of people … he attended thousands of community events. He showed up everywhere.”

Dinowitz described Engel as a model of the Bronx, growing up from humble beginnings in public housing, going to college in the district and ultimately becoming the longest-serving member of Congress from the Bronx. “This is what the Bronx is all about. Somebody from modest beginnings can rise to one of the most powerful positions in the country,” Dinowitz said.

“He was the strongest supporter of Israel in the Congress, bar none,” Dinowitz added. “He was an effective advocate for Israel, and not only Israel, but Jewish causes in general. … He stood strong and he never wavered in his support for Israel.”

State Rep. Amy Paulin said that one of her earliest memories of Engel, when her district was redistricted into his in the 2010s, is one that stands out the most strongly. At the time, she said, the two did not know each other well, but he personally took her call on a Saturday evening to help a dying constituent obtain visas for family members to come to the United States to see him on his death bed.

“Not only did he take the call personally, he acted on it personally,” Paulin said. “What stood out for me, as I even recall the story, was just, you know, there wasn’t a hesitation on his part. … He was just such a terrific asset for us. He went to every event that he knew about, when he was in town, and he was such a kind, warm, smart, capable person, and his loss is going to mean something. … He cared. That’s just who he was.”

She said she later worked with Engel during the first Trump administration to obtain visas for young Palestinians to join a program with young Israelis to discuss peacebuilding, and he later helped facilitate a visit by Paulin to the Jewish state during a time of conflict.

“He cared deeply about Israel. He represented an area that also cares deeply about Israel,” Paulin added. “Being in Israel, you could see his love of the country. … He wanted to be there to see everything he could, to bring those messages back to the rest of the Jewish community so that everybody had a real clear picture of what Israel was up against and he did that because of his love of Israel and his wanting Israel to exist.”

Justin Brasch, the mayor of White Plains, N.Y., told JI that Engel was “so accessible and so down to earth,” a “tremendous public servant” and “so warm” to everyone in the community.

“What probably is [most] sad about him leaving the stage is that there aren’t enough people who are just kind and nice to everyone,” Brasch said. “There’s so much anger and betrayal in politics today, and he absolutely rejected that. He was kind and helpful and accessible to everyone. And I know for me that has always been something that has inspired me.”

He said that Engel was always willing and eager to take calls and to help constituents with any problem, in addition to being a strong supporter of Israel and fighter against antisemitism.

“He would always show up at events of concern to the Jewish community,” Brasch said. “And then we were quite proud that he was a congressman in our area.”

William Schrag, the former president of the Westchester Jewish Council, said that Engel was a “fierce [advocate]” for his constituents and “never lost sight of the people here.” Schrag said that the local Jewish community “loved him.” 

Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime New York Democratic strategist who once worked for Engel, emphasized that the former congressman took on the traditional Democratic establishment in the Bronx on behalf of “the people who felt powerless” and won, remaining his own man throughout his public career.

He said Engel also clearly enjoyed being a public official — “he enjoyed the byplay, he enjoyed the drama, he enjoyed the behind the scenes stuff” and he was known for arriving early to State of the Union addresses to secure a coveted center-aisle seat and photo with the president.

Ultimately, however, Engel was “a victim of the first wave of the hostile takeover of the Democratic Party [by the far-left] which has become much more pronounced since then,” Sheinkopf continued. “Eliot Engel was an American in every way. He believed in democracy, he believed in diversity. He was racially blind. He thought power ought to be shared, and he never, never walked away from those convictions, nor his Jewishness, for which he paid the price of being evicted from office.”

“He was the precursor of what we are now experiencing. … He was the first guy to see it way up close,” Sheinkopf continued.

J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy organization which describes itself as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group, offered backing for the growing calls among far-left lawmakers to end U.S. support for Israel’s missile-defense systems, such as Iron Dome, which until recently had been largely spared even by strident critics of the Jewish state.

“What progressives are saying is not radical, and in fact, [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are arguing the same thing. Israel is capable of paying for its own military equipment, including supplies for its missile defense systems,” a J Street spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

Notably, that stance is at odds with J Street PAC’s own top endorsement criteria on its website as of Friday afternoon. The site states that J Street PAC requires endorsees to support “US security assistance to Israel that adheres to US law,” specifically citing support for Iron Dome.

“The United States plays an indispensable role in ensuring Israel’s future as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people. J Street PAC only supports candidates who affirm this responsibility and who commit to supporting US security assistance to Israel as outlined in the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) negotiated by President Obama — including sustained support for vital systems like Iron Dome,” the J Street website says.

The group, however, is currently supporting candidates who back policies like the Block the Bombs Act that run counter to the MOU.

In its statement, the group was referring to comments by the Israeli prime minister in which he did not call for an immediate end for U.S. aid to Israel, but said that he believed Israel would no longer need to rely on U.S. aid in a decade.

Though Graham initially responded to Netanyahu’s calls by suggesting he would immediately work to wind down U.S. aid, the South Carolina senator softened that position after a meeting with Netanyahu.

Calls to cut off missile defense aid to Israel have been growing in recent weeks from prominent far-left lawmakers like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), joined recently by Brad Lander, a Jewish challenger to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY).

J Street’s backing of that stance could give cover to a host of rank-and-file Democrats to take a similar position.

Systems like Iron Dome are also co-produced by the U.S. and Israel, and similar arrangements would likely continue even if direct U.S. financial aid to Israel were ended in the short term.

In a Substack post on Sunday, J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami said that the U.S. should continue to cooperatively develop defensive technologies and to sell such systems to Israel, subject to Israel’s compliance with U.S. arms sales law, but that it should no longer provide any financial aid or subsidies to Israel for military systems.

“The United States should continue to supply what Israel needs for the defense of its people from Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi missiles – but the time is coming for Israel to pay for what it needs, as other prosperous countries do,” Ben Ami wrote.

He also reiterated J Street’s support for new legislation conditioning U.S. arms sales to Israel and for upcoming legislation to block specific arms sales.

“The exact timetable for phasing out taxpayer subsidies should be worked out carefully. The United States should honor existing commitments, including those in the 2016 memorandum of understanding, through their conclusion in the next two years,” Ben Ami said. “But after that, a responsible yet rapid phase-out is needed – a step that would move the U.S. and Israel toward a more mature, balanced, and ultimately more resilient partnership – one grounded not only in shared interests, but in shared standards and accountability.”

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a bitterly contested June primary, called for ending all U.S. aid to Israel during an interview published Friday, reversing his prior support for funding to bolster Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.

Lander, a Jewish Democrat who identifies as a progressive Zionist, told The New York Editorial Board, a Substack of New York City journalists focused on local campaigns, that he “would not vote for any more aid [to Israel] at this moment,” when asked about his position on Iron Dome, saying he believed Israel was not following international law in the wake of its war in Gaza that he has called a genocide.

“I think we need to follow the Leahy Law and condition all of our foreign policy aid on human rights and international law compliance,” Lander said in the April 9 interview, referring to U.S. laws banning security assistance to foreign military units that engage in “gross” human rights violations. “At the moment, Israel is very far from complying with human rights and international law.”

Lander joins a handful of leading progressive lawmakers who have also recently vowed to reject further funding for Iron Dome and other defensive systems used by Israel, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one of Lander’s top allies in his race to unseat Goldman, confirmed last week that he holds the same position regarding aid to Israel.

Lander had declined to comment when asked by Jewish Insider this week to share his position on defensive funding to Israel, raising questions about where he would land on an issue that is emerging as a sort of electoral litmus test among the far-left activists he is courting in his campaign to represent a heavily Jewish district covering Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.   

Goldman, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, affirmed his support for continued Iron Dome funding in a statement to JI earlier this week, saying the system “provides critical protection to millions of civilians and saves hundreds of innocent lives every day.”

Lander had endorsed Iron Dome funding during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign last year, even as he had otherwise backed broad conditions on offensive aid. In February, he came out in support of a House bill seeking to impose sweeping new restrictions on offensive arms sales to Israel.

In a statement to The Forward on Friday, Lander called Iron Dome “critical to ensuring the safety of civilians in Israel” and said that “Israel should have access to purchase it with their own funds.”

But he added that the United States “should not provide taxpayer-funded financial aid for it at this time.”

“I genuinely hope that changes in the future, speedily and in our day, as part of a deal that protects the human rights and safety of all civilians in the region,” he told The Forward.

The Yale Political Union, a storied debate society at the Ivy League university, is slated to host antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker on campus on Tuesday for a debate titled “Resolved: End the American Empire,” according to the organization’s social media.

YPU — a registered student-run group, which is the oldest and largest collegiate debate society in America, according to its website — has hosted a range of elite figures such as former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter; media figures like Walter Cronkite and George Stephanopoulos; and leading intellectuals including economist Milton Friedman and Margaret Mead. 

Several alumni of the institution have held prestigious roles in politics, media and law, including former U.S. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and former Secretary of State John Kerry. 

A spokesperson for Yale University told Jewish Insider ​​that “student organizations are responsible for issuing their own invitations to speakers.”

“At the same time, Yale is committed to maintaining a diverse, vibrant, and respectful community in which free expression is a fundamental value and a shared responsibility. The university is dedicated to providing a space where differing views can be expressed and heard respectfully,” the spokesperson said.  

Piker, a far-left Twitch streamer, has recently been invited to speak at several high-profile events, despite a laundry list of antisemitic, anti-American and terror-supporting rhetoric, which includes justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. He has also called Orthodox Jews “inbred” and claimed America deserved 9/11. 

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing criticism from fellow Democrats and Jewish leaders for hosting rallies with Piker at two Michigan universities last week. 

Uri Cohen, executive director of the Slifka Center, Yale’s Hillel, told JI that “as an organization that holds foundational commitments to the free exchange of ideas — even those with which we deeply disagree — Slifka maintains that there must be a clear line between engaging with difference and platforming hate speech. We expect that Yale will continue to enforce applicable university policies to make sure that line gets reinforced for the good of Yale’s Jewish community and the larger campus as a whole.”

YPU did not respond to a request for comment from JI about its decision to host Piker. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has lately been saying that she does not take money from AIPAC or any corporate political action committees. So when a college student asked her at a town hall in Cincinnati on Thursday about $4.5 million she has received from “pro-Israel lobbies,” Slotkin pushed back — arguing the student was unfairly lumping together all Jewish donors. 

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to on ‘not AIPAC but the Israel lobby.’ If you’re equating ‘Israel lobby’ to Jews, I got a problem with that,” Slotkin said. 

The figure that the Xavier University student quoted comes from a far-left organization called Track AIPAC, which targets elected officials who it alleges have received funding from the “Israel lobby.” But increasingly, the group is tallying up donations from “lobby donors,” a broad category that critics believe includes any Jewish donors who have also supported AIPAC, J Street or other Jewish or Israel-related advocacy groups. 

Slotkin said that just as Iranian Americans, for instance, may not agree with everything the Iranian government does, “I think it’s really important, especially now, to make a distinction between the Israeli government and the choices that they’re making and the average Jew, okay, and Jewish people who donate to campaigns,” Slotkin said, earning applause from the audience. 

At the end of the event, she stood by her response to the question when asked about it by another attendee.

“What I take issue with is someone saying that I took $4.5 million from the pro-Israel lobby. That’s not AIPAC. I don’t know what that is,” she said. “But if that’s counting Jewish donors and saying Jewish donors are somehow the same as ‘pro-Israel lobby,’ I got a problem with that, and not just as an elected official, as a Jew.” 

Asked her position about taking money from AIPAC, Slotkin said she doesn’t accept AIPAC funding in the same way she eschews other “corporate PAC money.” But she said their work in Washington, of advocating for an issue by building relationships with members of Congress, is the same thing that scores of other groups do.

“I think Americans have the right to support those groups and do whatever they want. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. I don’t personally take money from AIPAC. I haven’t in many, many years,” Slotkin said to cheers. “But they and every other organization have an ecosystem in Washington, that they are doing things that every — there’s plenty of groups like them that do the very same thing, a Pakistani American group, or whatever group.” 

After the town hall, Slotkin told Politico that she would not do an interview with Hasan Piker, the antisemitic Twitch streamer who appeared at two campaign rallies earlier this week with progressive Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. 

“I gotta call balls and strikes, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, coming from the state that I come from, so that’s what I’ve tried to do as he’s come into Michigan,” Slotkin said. 

The comments Piker has made with which she takes issue, Slotkin continued, are “some derogatory things he’s said about Orthodox Jews, saying that we deserve 9/11, there’s some things in there. Not to mention he calls me stupid like every other week.” 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro accused President Donald Trump of being “bullied” into starting a war with Iran, suggesting in an interview with the “All-In Podcast” that Israel had pressured the U.S. into joining a military campaign against the Islamic Republic. 

“America should never be led around by any other nation. It should always be about America’s interests, our national security interests, the interests of expanding freedom and opportunity for the American people,” said Shapiro, who was responding to a question from tech investor Jason Calacanis about whether the U.S. followed Israel into an unnecessary war. “We should never, ever be bullied, as maybe President Trump was, by any other world leader.”

In the interview, Shapiro continued a line of criticism that he has used regularly against Trump’s handling of the war in Iran: that the president doesn’t know what he’s doing and has failed to offer a sufficient explanation to the American public.

“This was a war of choice. The president never defined the objectives. It is clear he doesn’t know how the hell to get out of this,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro’s allegation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had led the U.S. into war with Iran was a rhetorical escalation for the pro-Israel Democrat. While he reasserted the same pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu argument that he has been making for years now, Shapiro also made clear that it is America’s goals — and not Israel’s — that he cares about.

“I don’t view this issue as a Jewish American,” Shapiro said. “I view this issue as an American, and I view this issue in a way of trying to understand what is the best thing for America, which to me is having peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Even as Shapiro went after Trump for his handling of the war, he offered a word of praise about a different Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and his approach to antisemitism within his own party.

“I think on the issue of antisemitism, we have got to be in a place where we universally condemn it. And I think what you’re seeing from some folks on the right and some folks on the left is they’ll only call it out if it’s said by a political opponent or someone they disagree with,” said Shapiro. “I frankly respect people on the right like Ted Cruz, who have pulled it out within the Republican Party. I’ve tried to call it out when it rears its ugly head in my party.”

The “All-In Podcast” is hosted by four Silicon Valley investors, including David Sacks, co-chair of Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 

The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil’s attempt to dismiss his deportation case on Thursday, his lawyers said. 

Khalil called the ruling, which was widely expected and brings him closer to re-arrest and possible deportation, “biased and politically motivated.” 

“The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine — and this administration has weaponized the immigration system to punish me for it,” Khalil said in a statement. The ruling has not yet been publicized by the DOJ. 

Khalil was a key organizer of Columbia University’s anti-Israel encampment in April 2024, a two-week demonstration in the center of campus during Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration included several incidents of assault on Jewish students. Protesters used threatening and antisemitic slogans, including, “Go back to Poland”; signs with the Hamas symbol and the words “I’m with them”; and chants calling for Hamas attacks on Tel Aviv. 

Khalil later described the Oct. 7 attacks as “a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here. That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel,” he said in a New York Times interview. 

Last month, while speaking at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, Khalil argued that “claims of antisemitism are being weaponized to silence any critique of the U.S. support to Israel.”  

A former Columbia graduate student who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months pending deportation proceedings. Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that his prolonged detention likely violated his constitutional rights. 

A federal appeals court then ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that the federal district court in New Jersey that issued Khalil’s release did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it should have been handled in immigration court, which is part of the executive branch overseen by the Justice Department, meaning Khalil is now liable to be rearrested.

Tucker Carlson, the anti-Israel and antisemitic podcaster whose outspoken opposition to the Iran war has strained his relationship with President Donald Trump, has seen his personal ratings nosedive including among Republicans, according to a new YouGov poll. 

The survey, commissioned by UMass-Lowell between March 26-30, finds Carlson’s overall favorability rating at a dismal 17%, with 38% viewing him unfavorably. Nearly one-third of respondents said they had no opinion of him, and 15% had never heard of him.

Among Republicans, Carlson’s favorability rating is now just at 31%, with 24% viewing him unfavorably, and 35% offering no opinion. (For context, a Manhattan Institute poll of Republicans conducted in December 2025 found 63% of Republicans viewed Carlson favorably, with 21% viewing him unfavorably.)

On Thursday night, Trump launched a scathing social media attack against Carlson and other like-minded podcasters, referring to Carlson as a “broken man” who never recovered from being fired by Fox News in 2023. Trump’s post also included biting attacks against conspiracy-theorizing podcasters Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, calling them all “nutjobs,” “troublemakers” and “low IQ” individuals.

The poll was conducted two weeks before Trump’s harsh salvos against Carlson and the far-right podcasters. That would suggest that their standing with conservatives has more room to fall in future polling.

👋 Good Friday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview this weekend’s U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad and next week’s Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington amid a fragile Middle East ceasefire, and look at how Israel is viewing the agreement to cease hostilities for two weeks and effort to reach a negotiated agreement with Tehran. We have the exclusive on a new ad from Sen. John Cornyn hitting primary challenger Ken Paxton over the Texas attorney general’s ties to Tucker Carlson, and report on the rejection of an anti-AIPAC resolution by the Democratic National Committee’s rules committee. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Erin Foster and Freida McFadden.

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

• Vice President JD Vance, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are slated to take part in Pakistani-brokered talks with Iran this weekend in Islamabad, days after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Tehran. More below.
• We’ll be keeping an eye over the weekend on the expected Israel-Lebanon peace talks being brokered by Washington early next week between Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa. Over the weekend, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is set to travel to the U.S. to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio ahead of the talks.
• Hamas has just hours to respond to the Board of Peace’s proposal that would force the group to disarm. Despite ongoing negotiations in Cairo, it is unlikely that Hamas will agree to fully disarm, potentially prompting renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip.
• The National Action Network Convention kicked off on Wednesday in New York City and runs through Saturday, with a number of public officials and potential 2028 contenders slated to speak at Rev. Al Sharpton’s annual conference. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro invoked his faith on Wednesday while making a pitch to the Black voters in the audience. “What, you don’t think a Jew can go to a Baptist church?” he quipped. Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore brought cheering attendees to their feet on Thursday before criticizing the war in Iran as a costly and protracted misadventure. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) are slated to speak today and tomorrow.
• On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League and Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold their Annual Gathering of Remembrance at Temple Emanu-El in New York City ahead of Yom Hashoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — which begins Monday evening.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S melissa weiss

American and Iranian officials are meeting tomorrow in Islamabad, Pakistan, to begin conversations aimed at ending the conflict that has consumed the Middle East since late February. Though much change has occurred in the last six weeks, the decisions made in the next two could determine the future of the region for decades to come.

The “fog of diplomacy,” as The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it, has shrouded much of what is known about the talks and their contours. The first 24 hours after the ceasefire was announced saw dueling — and often conflicting — statements, denials and claims about various points, including the inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and the status of the Strait of Hormuz, that were proposed and supposedly agreed to by the parties.

Those sticking points deepened in the days between the ceasefire announcement and tomorrow’s meeting in Pakistan. On Wednesday, Israel conducted widespread strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives whom the IDF said had embedded in civilian areas, while Hezbollah has launched dozens of missiles into Israel — including one fired at the southern city of Ashdod that also triggered sirens across Tel Aviv and surrounding towns early Friday morning. Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday accused Iran of “doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”

It is against that backdrop that Vice President JD Vance, joined by White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will enter into negotiations tomorrow in Islamabad. 

In tandem, a separate set of negotiations is slated to take place in Washington early next week, when the U.S. will convene the envoys from Israel and Lebanon for rare direct, public talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem. If reached — and if Lebanon takes meaningful action to demilitarize Hezbollah — Iran could lose its most powerful proxy in the region. Under pressure from Washington, Israel has limited its attacks on Lebanon.

While the inability to agree on the parameters for a ceasefire does not portend well for the ability to secure a more lasting agreement, both sides have a vested interest in reaching an accord that allows both to declare victory. Watching from the sidelines are Israel and the Gulf states, which will not be represented in Islamabad, and will instead have to hope from their respective capitals that the U.S. does not acquiesce to an agreement that emboldens Iran — and leaves American allies vulnerable.

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

THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL

Israelis uncertain if Iran war made them safer after ceasefire brings combat to an inconclusive halt

For many Israelis who were awoken by rocket sirens just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, only to see the headline on their phones that a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran had been reached, the news was met with mixed feelings of relief and concern. After the ceasefire went into effect, there was a pervading feeling in Israel that the war with Iran was not complete, and the return to routine life may be short-lived, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

Survey says: Israelis’ support for the war effort despite the challenges on the home front was strong because its aims — eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat and severely degrading the ballistic missile threat — were meant to ultimately make them safer, along with the hope, bolstered by statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, that the mullahs’ regime would be toppled. Yet, according to a Channel 13 poll, Israelis ranked their sense of security after the war at 5.36 out of 10, and gave Netanyahu a grade of 5.56. The mixed feelings from the public were backed up by experts who spoke to JI on Thursday. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that it is “too early to say” whether Israel is safer now than it was six weeks ago.

Read the full story here.

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TRUST BUT VERIFY

Hawkish Republican senators standing behind Trump’s ceasefire deal with Iran

Despite skepticism over the terms and reports of ongoing Iranian strikes, several prominent hawkish Republicans are voicing support for President Donald Trump’s fragile two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing ahead with efforts to pass war powers resolutions on the conflict and calls for Trump’s removal from office.

Notable quotable: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among the most prominent backers of the war in the Senate, said in a post on X that a “diplomatic solution to end the reign of terror in Iran is the preferred outcome” but said he has concerns about the supposed 10-point plan presented by Iran, which would require the lifting of all U.S. sanctions on Iran, among other steps. “I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said.

Read the full story here with additional comments from Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND).

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EXCLUSIVE

New John Cornyn ad hits Ken Paxton over ties to Tucker Carlson

A new ad by Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) reelection campaign will hit his runoff primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, over his ties to far-right commentator Tucker Carlson, pointing to Carlson’s criticisms of President Donald Trump, while also honing in on his attacks against Trump’s support for Israel and the war in Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

About the ad: The minute-long ad — a five-figure buy set to begin airing on digital platforms on Friday, JI has learned — appears to be one of the first mentions of Carlson as a target in GOP primary campaigns. It highlights that Carlson has clashed with Trump over the war in Iran and Trump’s support for Israel, and that he backed Paxton’s campaign — though Paxton does not share Carlson’s views on Middle East policy. “Ken Paxton still accepts Tucker Carlson’s endorsement,” the ad intones.

Read the full story here.

Breaking up: President Donald Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson on Tuesday after the far-right podcaster used his most recent show to accuse the president of steering the U.S. toward nuclear war with Iran and to suggest, in apocalyptic terms, that Trump might be waging a stealth attack on Christianity, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports. In a phone interview with the New York Post, Trump described Carlson as a “low IQ” individual, adding that he has stopped responding to his calls.

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THE CENTER HOLDS

DNC resolution criticizing AIPAC involvement in primaries voted down in committee

Democratic Party activists on Thursday voted to reject a measure that criticized the involvement of AIPAC in Democratic primaries and the American political system. The resolution was debated during a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee at the DNC’s New Orleans meeting, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

AIPAC angle: Committee members were considering new policy resolutions, including one introduced by a Florida activist that took aim at AIPAC and the group’s “undue influence over democratic debate and policymaking.” It was voted down in a voice vote. “The DNC made clear today that all Democrats, including millions who are AIPAC members, have the right to participate fully in the democratic process,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa told JI. Committee members were considering new policy resolutions, including one introduced by a Florida activist that took aim at AIPAC and the group’s “undue influence over democratic debate and policymaking.”

Read the full story here.

On offense: The pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC launched its first ad of the 2026 presidential cycle, targeting frequent California Democratic candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, accusing him of hypocrisy and of flip-flopping on his positions, JI’s Marc Rod reports. The group is spending $750,000 on the ad.

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LIPS ARE SEALED

Brad Lander declines to say whether he still supports missile-defense funding for Israel

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in one of the marquee Democratic primary contests of the midterms, is declining to clarify his position on U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system, even as he expressed his support for the aid last year during an unsuccessful mayoral campaign, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Zoom out: Lander’s reticence comes as some leading progressive lawmakers have said they will oppose further funding for Iron Dome and other defensive systems used to intercept incoming attacks against Israel. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Lander’s top ally in the June House race to unseat Goldman, a pro-Israel stalwart, confirmed last week that he agreed with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) commitment to oppose defensive aid to Israel. Asked to clarify his position on Iron Dome funding, Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Lander, told JI on Wednesday he would not be commenting and did not return follow-up emails. Lander did not respond to a text message from JI seeking comment on Thursday.

Read the full story here.

Flip-flop: Michael Blake, a far-left challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), said at a debate  on Tuesday hosted by One NYC Action that he would oppose missile-defense aid for the Jewish state — the latest flip-flop on Israel policy issues by a candidate who has reversed numerous of his past stances on the subject over the course of his campaign, JI’s Marc Rod reports. He said he supported funding for Iron Dome in January during a different campaign event.

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HAMAWY HEADWAY

Anti-Israel groups organize behind Gaza doctor in N.J. House primary

A constellation of anti-Israel groups is coalescing behind Adam Hamawy, a doctor who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas and has been an outspoken critic of Israel, in the competitive Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. He also recently reported raising $550,000 in the first quarter of 2026, a sizable sum.

Endorsements: Justice Democrats and PAL PAC, a new group affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Understanding that aims to counter AIPAC, both offered their endorsements of Hamawy last month, moves that could bring more national attention and backing to the candidate. Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said that Hamawy’s $550,000 first quarter fundraising haul and the recent endorsements show momentum for his campaign, but “what remains to be seen is whether this translates into forcing [Sue] Altman to split the outside lane with him.”

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Goodwill Ambassadors: In the Financial Times, Daniel Benaim, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Peninsula affairs in the Near East Bureau at the State Department, calls on the U.S. to nominate and confirm ambassadors to key postings around the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. “Going forward, there will be Gulf partners who badly need reassuring, reconstruction efforts to support, business ties to revitalise and expat Americans to help. At a time when many question US leadership, there’s an underrated value in simply showing up — and a cost for not doing so. … At moments like these, an American ambassador in post sends a powerful message of solidarity to partners who are watching missiles rain down on their cities.” [FT]

Putin’s Stake: In The New York Times, Nicole Grajewski considers the extent to which the Iranian regime’s survival is critical to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s global strength. “[The Russia-Iran relationship] is dense, diversified and in important respects self-reinforcing — each layer of cooperation makes the next layer easier to build and harder to dismantle. … Mr. Putin has spent years building a coalition of the discontented around the premise that authoritarian states can outlast Western pressure; that regimes built for endurance — which absorb decades of sanctions, surveil their publics and suppress dissent — cannot be undone. Iran, which has absorbed the most pressure and held the longest, is his proof of concept.” [NYTimes]

Real Regime Change: In The Washington Post, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Dennis Ross posits that the Iranian regime, which survived six weeks of war with the U.S. and Israel, could still fall due to its own domestic malfeasance. “Before the war, the Iranian regime had no answers to any of its fundamental governance failings that produced the public uprisings in December and January. When the war fully ends, it will be even less able to deal with water and electricity cutoffs, a currency that has no value, endemic corruption and the increasing difficulty of daily life. … [T]he inner contradictions of the Islamic Republic will in time either produce an Iranian Gorbachev to try to avert regime collapse, or it will collapse outright.” [WashPost]

The Lion and Lebanon: In his Substack “It’s Noon in Israel,” Amit Segal suggests that Iran’s response to Israeli attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon could signal the end of the regime in Tehran. “If Iran breaks and leaves its proxy at the mercy of Israel, then the Axis of Resistance has officially broken. The Iranian guarantee becomes as worthless as their currency, and its proxies will have to chart their own courses, if not disintegrate altogether. Conversely, if Israel concedes, then it has surrendered its post-October 7 security doctrine: Never allow threats to build up on the borders.” [ItsNooninIsrael]

Word on the Street

House Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to use unanimous consent to pass a measure calling for an end to U.S. operations targeting Iran…

Nawaf al-Thani, the former Qatari defense attaché in Washington, warned that the war with Iran has “forever” altered relations between Doha and Tehran, saying that after Iran’s strikes on the Gulf state’s liquefied natural gas exports, Qatar “has to see a seriousness from Iran when it comes to Qatari security”…

The Wall Street Journal looks at concerns among Gulf states that the two-week ceasefire announced earlier this week is emboldening Iran and positioning the Islamic Republic as a regional hegemon…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine had shot down Iranian-designed Shahed drones that had been launched from the Islamic Republic at nearby Gulf states using domestically produced interceptors that had been utilized to shoot down Shahed drones fired by Russia at Ukraine…

The Free Press reports on a January meeting between the Pentagon’s Elbridge Colby and the Holy See’s envoy in Washington to find common ground and encourage the Vatican to align with the U.S. on defense and foreign policy; the meeting went awry after another U.S. official noted the 14th century period in which France created its own papacy over disagreements with Rome..

The Missouri Statehouse passed legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism on Thursday, sending it to the governor’s desk; “After 16 months of intense work in a growing climate of anti-Jew hate, Jewish students in our state are finally protected against intimidation and harassment,” Stacey Newman, the executive director of the Missouri Alliance Network, told JI, adding specific praise for the “numerous Jewish students who courageously testified in the Capitol of their hateful experiences on campus, which they continue to face”…

Amid controversy, Peter Chatzky, a progressive who had provided $5 million in funding for his campaign for New York’s 17th Congressional District, announced his withdrawal from the race; the decision leaves Effie Phillips-Staley as the main competitor in the left lane in the Democratic primary…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) convened Christian and Jewish leaders for a call with reporters to criticize Paul Dans and Mark Lynch, who are challenging Graham in the Republican primary for his Senate seat, over Dans’ refusal to fire his campaign communications director and Lynch declining to part ways with his political director despite the staffers’ respective records of making antisemitic statements, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports… 

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Summer Lee (D-PA) and leftist streamer Hasan Piker dismissed criticism of Piker and his past antisemitic and anti-American comments at a rally at the University of Michigan on Tuesday, JI’s Marc Rod reports… 

Speaking at the Tuesday night event, El-Sayed doubled down on claims that the man who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield last month did so as a result of the pain he felt from the war in the Middle East, saying, “hurt people do hurt people,” JI’s Gabby Deutch reports… 

A candidate for the University of Michigan Board of Regents shared a series of social media posts praising Hezbollah leaders and Iran, including one last June, during the 12-day war with Israel, calling on Tehran to “show no laxity in sacred war against the enemy”…

A Pakistani man living in Canada pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to a terrorism charge over a failed plot to attack a Jewish center in Brooklyn…

The war in Iran has cost Israel political support in the United States, according to a new Pew Research Center poll, which shows 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, with 37% viewing the Jewish state favorably, JI’s Josh Kraushaar reports…

Jewish groups criticized the American Association of Geographers after its members pushed for an academic boycott of Israel at the organization’s annual meeting, which featured overwhelmingly one-sided presentations against the Jewish state, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…  

Paramount President Jeff Shell departed the company following an investigation into allegations he shared confidential company information with an outside consultant…

The Associated Press spotlights Colby College’s Center for Small Town Jewish Life, which aims to support and strengthen small Jewish communities around the country…

“Nobody Wants This” creator Erin Foster is joining the show as a guest star in its upcoming third season…

The Housemaid author Freida McFadden revealed that McFadden was a pen name and her real name and identity was Sara Cohen, a physician who specializes in traumatic brain injuries…  

Authorities in Canada charged a man with four gun counts after he fired a gun at a Jewish-owned restaurant in the Toronto suburb of North York last week…

Organizers of the annual Wireless festival in the U.K. canceled the three-day festival after British authorities revoked the visa of Kanye West, who had been scheduled to headline the event despite numerous incidents in which the artist invoked antisemitism language; the U.K.’s Home Office said the visa revocation was “made on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good”…

Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry announced that the country had declared Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Houthis as terrorist groups…

Diplomat David Cornstein, who served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2018-2020 and played a key role in deepening ties between the Orbán government and President Donald Trump, died at 87…

Photographer Nathan Farb, who was known for images of Russians in Siberia, hippies in New York City and the landscapes of the Adirondacks, died at 85…

Journalist Peter Schrag, the author of 1998’s Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future, died at 94…

Pic of the Day

Israelis enjoyed the last day of Passover and the first day of the ceasefire with Iran on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Birthdays

Israeli singer-songwriter, actress and model, she represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, Noa Kirel turns 25 today…

FRIDAY: Past president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, he was previously an executive of both the L.A. Lakers and the L.A. Clippers, Alan Rothenberg turns 87… Author of four novels and two political history books, he is a former senior editor at The New Yorker and a deputy editor of the “Outlook Section” in The Washington Post, Jeffrey Frank turns 82… Author of 265 books including 56 books in the Cam Jansen series, 68 biographies and books for youth on the Holocaust, David Abraham Adler turns 79… Naomi Eisenberger Atlani… Former member of the Knesset for 26 years, he once served as vice prime minister, Haim Ramon turns 76… Founder of Gantman Communications, he was the VP of global strategic communications at the Motion Picture Association of America, Howard Gantman… Scarsdale, N.Y., resident, Robin Stalbow Samot… Soviet-born Israeli-American pianist, Yefim “Fima” Bronfman turns 68… Member of the Knesset for the Likud party for 23 years, now chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Yuval Steinitz turns 68… Author of four books (including one made into an award-winning miniseries), she was the chief national correspondent at Yahoo News, following 30 years at The New York Times, Lisa Belkin turns 66… Former CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, she stepped down last month, Shirley Ann Bloomfield… Tom Kohn… Author of five best-selling memoirs and six novels, she has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue and Elle, Dani Shapiro… Host of Radio Atlantic and a senior editor at The Atlantic, she was born in Israel and moved to Queens when she was 5, Hanna Rosin turns 57… Governor of Missouri from January 2017-June 2018, Eric Greitens turns 52… Co-CEO of NJI Media and co-founder of FamousDC blog, Josh Shultz… Movie producer best known for the 2016 musical romantic-drama film “La La Land,” Jordan Horowitz turns 46… Israeli journalist, television personality and a political columnist for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Amit Yitzhak Segal turns 44… SVP of entertainment and news media at Disability Belongs, Lauren Appelbaum… Attorney who has clerked for two federal judges, he also served as a fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General, Yishai Schwartz… White House liaison to the American Jewish community during the Biden administration, Shelley Greenspan… Associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Daniel E. Wolman… Basketball player for Klosterneuburg Dukes in the Austrian Basketball Superliga, Sylven Landesberg turns 36… Phil Hayes… Susie Diamond…

SATURDAY: Actress who played the title character on the 325-episode soap opera satire “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Louise Lasser turns 87… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and syndicated columnist, she is the co-founder of “The Conversation Project,” focused on end-of-life care, Ellen Goodman turns 85… Founder and CEO of the USA Network in 1977, she is the co-founder and chairman of Springboard Enterprises, Kay Koplovitz turns 81… West Bloomfield, Mich.-based inventor on more than 40 patents, Barry Schwab… Actor, director and screenwriter, he played the role of a crooked politician in “The Sopranos,” Peter Riegert turns 79… Sarita Dery… Former deputy director of WomenStrong International, Sydney Rubin turns 74… Managing partner and a founder of L.A.-based law firm Glass & Goldberg, Marshall F. Goldberg… Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since 1999 from the Pittsburgh area, Dan B. Frankel turns 70… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, Michael Vitez turns 69… Australian industrialist, executive chairman of Visy Industries and Pratt Industries US, the world’s largest privately owned packaging company, Anthony Pratt turns 66… Chair of the board of The Estée Lauder Companies, he serves on many charitable boards including the University of Pennsylvania and the 92nd Street Y, William P. Lauder turns 66… Provost of Harvard University, formerly dean of Harvard Law School, John Francis Manning turns 65… General counsel of the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration, Jonathan E. Meyer turns 61… Scholar of Eastern European Jewry, with a focus on the social history of Hasidism, Glenn Dynner turns 57… Retired Olympic breaststroke swimmer, he competed for the Soviet Union and then Israel, Vadim Alekseyev turns 56… Co-founder of Caracal Global Strategies and founder and CEO of Brigadoon, Marc A. Ross turns 55… Fashion designer, entrepreneur and author, founder of Body by Julia shapewear, Julia Haart turns 55… Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, he has held a variety of administrative and educational roles at Yeshiva, Rabbi Ezra Y. Schwartz turns 52… Head of fixed income sales at Citadel LLC, he was previously a Major League Soccer midfielder, Jordan Cila turns 44… Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and a dayan/judge at the Beth Din of America, Rabbi Itamar Rosensweig turns 37… Youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona House of Representatives, she is a convert to Judaism and worked for Tucson’s JCRC, Alma Hernandez turns 33…

SUNDAY: Founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, Pastor John Charles Hagee turns 86… Former national correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” where she worked for more than 50 years before retiring in March 2025, Rita Braver turns 78… Attorney and bestselling novelist of 13 legal thrillers and author of three nonfiction books, combined he has sold more than 30 million copies, Scott Turow turns 77… Television producer, he serves as chairman of the Liverpool Football Club and the Boston Red Sox, Thomas Charles Werner turns 76… SVP at UJA Federation of New York, Stuart Tauber… Fashion designer, he is a co-founder of the Guess clothing and accessory brand, Paul Marciano turns 74… West Bloomfield, Mich., resident, Ron Mitnick… Washington, D.C., attorney, Norman B. “Norm” Antin… Member of the House of Lords and Parliamentary under-secretary of state for patient safety, women’s health and mental health, she previously served as chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 2014-2021, Baroness Joanna Merron turns 67… U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer turns 65… Twin brothers, both real estate agents starring in the Netflix original series “Selling Sunset,” Jason and Brett Oppenheim both turn 49… Actress, director and writer, Jordana Spiro turns 49… Realtor focused on the Boston area, Ilya Jacob Rasner… President at National Student Legal Defense Network, Aaron Ament… California state senator (D-27), Henry I. Stern turns 44… Attorney, general counsel of an international technology firm, chair of the GI Research Foundation, board member of multiple biotech companies, and controlling owner of OnlyFans following the death of her husband Leonid Radvinsky in March 2026, Yekaterina “Katie” Chudnovsky… Member of the Seattle City Council, Daniel Aaron Strauss turns 40… Comedian, writer and actress, best known for co-creating and co-starring in the Comedy Central series “Broad City,” Ilana Glazer turns 39… Israeli actress best known for her lead role in the 2012 film “Fill the Void,” Hadas Yaron turns 36… Actor, he starred as Big Red in the Disney series “High School Musical,” Larry Saperstein turns 28…

A new ad by Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) reelection campaign will hit his runoff primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, over his ties to far-right commentator Tucker Carlson, pointing to Carlson’s criticisms of President Donald Trump, while also honing in on his attacks against Trump’s support for Israel and the war in Iran.

The minute-long ad — a five-figure buy set to begin airing on digital platforms on Friday, Jewish Insider has learned — appears to be one of the first mentions of Carlson as a target in GOP primary campaigns.

The ad opens by highlighting Trump’s support for Israel and efforts to counter Iran, contrasting that with Carlson, whom the ad states is “attacking our president for keeping America and Israel safe,” including a clip of Carlson describing the Iran war as “vile, on every level.”

It highlights that Trump had attacked Carlson as a “low IQ person” and a “fool” before playing a clip of Paxton appearing on Carlson’s show, in which Carlson expresses his support for the attorney general. “Ken Paxton still accepts Tucker Carlson’s endorsement,” the ad intones.

“Ken Paxton is taking Carlson’s side over President Trump,” the ad claims. “President Trump and MAGA stand with Israel. Ken Paxton and Tucker Carlson stand for nothing.”

Paxton has, in fact, been strongly supportive of the war in Iran and of Israel and has not expressed similar views to Carlson on the subject.

The ad closes with what appears to be an AI-generated selfie depicting Carlson and Paxton, next to a running money counting machine — a reference to corruption scandals involving Paxton, which Cornyn has highlighted on the campaign trail.

“It’s time for the crook to renounce the fool,” the ad’s narrator states.

Recent public polling has found Paxton with a narrow lead over Cornyn in the runoff, even though he trailed Cornyn in the three-person GOP primary last month. While Trump was, at one point, expected to endorse a candidate for the runoff race to clear the field, he has not yet done so.

American and Iranian officials are meeting on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan, to begin conversations aimed at ending the conflict that has consumed the Middle East since late February. Though much change has occurred in the last six weeks, the decisions made in the next two could determine the future of the region for decades to come.

The “fog of diplomacy,” as The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it, has shrouded much of what is known about the talks and their contours. The first 24 hours after the ceasefire was announced saw dueling — and often conflicting — statements, denials and claims about various points, including the inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and the status of the Strait of Hormuz, that were proposed and supposedly agreed to by the parties.

Those sticking points deepened in the days between the ceasefire announcement and Saturday’s meeting in Pakistan. On Wednesday, Israel conducted widespread strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives whom the IDF said had embedded in civilian areas, while Hezbollah has launched dozens of missiles into Israel — including one fired at the southern city of Ashdod that also triggered sirens across Tel Aviv and surrounding towns early Friday morning. Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday accused Iran of “doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”

It is against that backdrop that Vice President JD Vance, joined by White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will enter into negotiations tomorrow in Islamabad. 

In tandem, a separate set of negotiations is slated to take place in Washington early next week, when the U.S. will convene the envoys from Israel and Lebanon for rare direct, public talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem. If reached — and if Lebanon takes meaningful action to demilitarize Hezbollah — Iran could lose its most powerful proxy in the region. Under pressure from Washington, Israel has limited its attacks on Lebanon.

While the inability to agree on the parameters for a ceasefire does not portend well for the ability to secure a more lasting agreement,both sides have a vested interest in reaching an accord that allows both to declare victory. Watching from the sidelines are Israel and the Gulf states, which will not be represented in Islamabad, and will instead have to hope from their respective capitals that the U.S. does not acquiesce to an agreement that emboldens Iran — and leaves the American allies vulnerable.

With the regime still intact — and still pledging destruction — Israel has reason to worry. Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, warned on Thursday night that “we definitely won’t allow the criminal aggressors who attacked our country to go unpunished.”

And even as Pakistan positions itself as a convener, its senior officials make clear it is not hosting talks as an impartial actor. On Thursday morning, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif posted on X — and later deleted — that “Israel is evil and a curse for humanity,” adding, “I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinian land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”

With elections in both the U.S. and Israel later this year, both Washington and Jerusalem have a vested interest in U.S. negotiators securing the best possible deal with Tehran. With rising fuel prices, the White House will want to project strength in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will need to convince voters that they are safer now than they were a year ago — and that Israel won’t find itself in an ongoing cycle of wars that bring the country to a halt for weeks on end every year.

But the longer-term questions remain. Will Iran, whose nuclear and ballistic missile programs were dealt significant blows, further conceal aspects of both? What degree of threat can Israel live with on its borders? How has the Iranian regime’s survival emboldened its allies in Beijing and Moscow? And what of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have largely held their fire over the last six weeks?

Those are questions unlikely to be resolved in Islamabad in the coming days, but they are the ones that Israel and the West will have to grapple with once the dust from this war has settled.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in one of the marquee Democratic primary contests of the midterms, is declining to clarify his position on U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, even as he expressed his support for the aid last year during an unsuccessful mayoral campaign.

His reticence comes as some leading progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), have said they will oppose further funding for Iron Dome and other defensive systems used to intercept incoming attacks against Israel. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Lander’s top ally in the June House race to unseat Goldman, a pro-Israel stalwart, confirmed last week that he agreed with Ocasio-Cortez’s commitment to oppose defensive aid to Israel.

Asked to clarify his position on Iron Dome funding, Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Lander, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday he would not be commenting and did not return follow-up emails. Lander did not respond to a text message from JI seeking comment on Thursday.

Lander, an outspoken Jewish Democrat who has long identified as a progressive Zionist critical of Israeli policies, confirmed to the New York Post last spring while mounting his mayoral campaign that he believed the United States should continue to provide funding for Iron Dome and other related defensive systems to help repel missiles launched by Iran and its regional proxy groups including Hamas and Hezbollah.

He and his campaign would not disclose whether he still holds that position. 

Despite a lack of clarity on defensive aid, Lander has otherwise made clear that he favors conditions on broader military assistance to Israel, vowing in February to support the Block the Bombs Act — legislation that seeks to impose sweeping new restrictions on offensive weapons transfers to Israel.

Lander’s apparent reluctance to specifically weigh in on Iron Dome, support for which has long drawn widespread bipartisan support, underscores how he is now cautiously navigating a sensitive issue that is emerging as a sort of electoral litmus test within the far-left activist base he is courting while building his congressional campaign. On Thursday, Lander won backing from a new MoveOn.org campaign called “Stop the War Hawks,” described as a counter to spending from AI, defense contractors and AIPAC, which has endorsed Goldman.

In his bid to represent a heavily Jewish House district covering Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, Lander has sought to cast himself as an anti-AIPAC foe, accusing Goldman, a fellow Jewish Democrat, of being beholden to pro-Israel interests.

But in contrast to Mamdani and his allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, Lander, a former DSA member, has been less willing to fully endorse a maximalist approach to opposing Israel — even as he has forcefully escalated his rhetoric in the wake of its war in Gaza, which he has called a genocide.

Still, he has rejected the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel and insists he believes in Israel as a Jewish state, illustrating some possible points of tension with the activist left as the competitive June 23 primary approaches.

For his part, Goldman voiced his strong support for Iron Dome funding in a statement to JI this week — raising further questions over where Lander will fall on the issue.

“Our number one goal must always be to keep innocent people safe. The Iron Dome provides critical protection to millions of civilians and saves hundreds of innocent lives every day. I will always support defensive systems that keep civilians out of harm’s way,” Goldman said.

The two-term congressman, who significantly outraised Lander in the most recent quarter, argued in a recent interview that “Israel’s security is a much more complicated question than so-called offensive or defensive weapons.”

“I do not believe that Israel should be left to defend itself based on the Iron Dome itself,” he explained, “without the opportunity to have a deterrent effect of being able to either preemptively or reactively respond to attacks.”

Jewish Insider’s Washington reporter Matthew Shea contributed to this report.

A constellation of anti-Israel groups is coalescing behind Adam Hamawy, a doctor who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas and has been an outspoken critic of Israel, in the competitive Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. He also recently reported raising $550,000 in the first quarter of 2026, a sizable sum.

Justice Democrats and PAL PAC, a new group affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Understanding that aims to counter AIPAC, both offered their endorsements of Hamawy last month, moves that could bring more national attention and backing to the candidate.

“From war zones to the operating room, Dr. Hamawy has seen firsthand how our government’s misplaced priorities mean life and death for millions of people in America and across the world,” Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas said in a statement.

“As a physician, he has witnessed the destruction wrought by our tax dollars abroad, while seeing his own patients struggle to afford the healthcare they need at home,” PAL PAC executive director Margaret DeReus said in a statement. “He is a witness with a mandate to ensure our resources fund healthcare at home, not Israel’s war crimes abroad.”

Hamawy had previously been endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and TrackAIPAC, as well as by former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who was also an outspoken critic of Israel. Hamawy was also endorsed by the more moderate Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who credits Hamawy for saving her life after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq.

Sue Altman, a progressive organizer and former senior staffer for Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), is viewed as a highly competitive challenger, alongside a handful of local officials who are likely to have support in their own communities, including East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp and state Rep. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson.

Altman advanced to the June ballot despite a slew of challenges to petition signatures she collected.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said that Hamawy’s $550,000 first quarter fundraising haul and the recent endorsements show momentum for his campaign, but “what remains to be seen is whether this translates into forcing Altman to split the outside lane with him.  In order for that to happen, he will need to invest his money effectively — presumably in sharing his personal story, which is how he differentiates himself.”

Dan Cassino, the executive director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, said he sees Altman as the frontrunner, “but Hamawy’s fundraising numbers certainly put him in the top tier along with [former Department of Energy official Jay] Vaingankar and a host of local candidates who could win on the strength of name recognition and strong ties to the district. “

Cassino said that, if voters focus on national issues in the election, as they did in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, that would be a poor sign for Reynolds-Jackson, Cohen and Mapp. 

“The endorsements matter, because they serve as a signal to voters in a race where partisanship can’t be used as a heuristic, but anyone who’s closely following the endorsements probably already has a favorite candidate,” Cassino added. “The more important signal is about who is, and is not, a serious candidate: voters are very concerned about tossing their ballots away on a candidate who doesn’t have much of a chance, and endorsements can be used as a signal that a candidate should be taken seriously.”

Rasmussen said that Cohen, who is Jewish, remains one of the stronger candidates in the “establishment lane,” having picked up the endorsement of the Middlesex County Democrats, which have a strong vote-by-mail turnout operation. Middlesex has also made up the largest turnout bloc in the district.

“But … he’s still sharing that crowded establishment lane with candidates from every other county,” Rasmussen said.

Hamawy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Blake, a far-left challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), said at a debate  on Tuesday hosted by One NYC Action that he would oppose missile defense aid for the Jewish state — the latest flip-flop on Israel policy issues by a candidate who has reversed numerous of his past stances on the subject over the course of his campaign.

Blake was once a close ally of AIPAC and a champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship, but has repositioned himself as a harsh critic of the Jewish state — and has continued to move left during the course of his campaign.

Blake said this week that he would oppose all aid, including defensive aid, to Israel.

“We need a permanent ceasefire, full stop. We need to absolutely stop the aid that is happening. We need to stop sending money,” Blake said. 

Blake expressed the opposite view just months ago in a January event with the Ben Franklin Club, saying that he viewed protecting and supporting Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system as a separate issue than blocking other military aid, and indicated that he would continue to support Iron Dome.

In that same event, Blake asserted his continued support for anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions legislation he helped pass in the state assembly — before going on to reverse that stance in late March.

Blake reiterated his new opposition to the anti-BDS legislation in the debate this week, saying he lacked the proper information about the bill at the time of his previous support.

On Thursday, Blake picked up an endorsement from TrackAIPAC, the virulently anti-Israel group that has attracted accusations of antisemitism from other Democrats, and which requires endorsees to adopt a host of anti-Israel stances, including a full arms embargo on Israel.

He also argued that the war in Iran, and efforts to stop Trump from launching an all-out assault on the country, were proof of why Torres needed to be defeated, without fully explaining that argument. Torres has also opposed the war, condemned Trump’s comments threatening the destruction of Iranian civilization and said the president needs to be removed from office.

“It was reported today that Trump went into [the war] because Netanyahu and the Israeli government lied to him consistently in a February meeting and prior to that,” Blake continued, again asserting that as an “indication on why Ritchie Torres has to go,” without explaining further.

For many Israelis who were awoken by rocket sirens just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, only to see the headline on their phones that a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran had been reached, the news was met with mixed feelings of relief and concern.

For most Israelis, the ceasefire has brought tangible relief: an end to regular missile alerts, the prospect of uninterrupted sleep (though Hezbollah swiftly shattered that hope for many on Thursday night), and children back in school. Yet for residents of Israel’s north who continue to live under frequent Hezbollah rocket fire, even this fragile respite remains out of reach.

After the ceasefire went into effect, there was a pervading feeling in Israel that the war with Iran was not complete, and the return to routine life may be short-lived. An overwhelming majority of Israelis supported the war a month after its late-February start, and just over half supported its continuation, according to the Israel Democracy Institute. Those views remained relatively steady after Iran stopped shooting missiles: A poll broadcast on Israel’s Channel 13 news on Thursday found that 51% of Israelis opposed President Donald Trump’s agreement to a ceasefire. 

Israelis’ support for the war effort despite the challenges on the home front was strong because its aims — eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat and severely degrading the ballistic missile threat — were meant to ultimately make them safer, along with the hope, bolstered by statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, that the mullahs’ regime would be toppled.

Yet, according to the Channel 13 poll, Israelis ranked their sense of security after the war at 5.36 out of 10, and gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a grade of 5.56. Only slightly more Israelis (33%) thought that Israel and the U.S. won the war, as opposed to Iran (28%); a plurality (39%) were not sure.

“Israel did not meet its war aims, and the cost is expected to be high,” Yoav Limor, the main military analyst of Adelson-owned Israel Hayom wrote on Thursday. The Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman lamented that “another war ends without a decisive win.” Even the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 featured the headline “This is how wars are lost: Stopping a moment before victory” on its homepage, and another, more positive, article about the war’s achievements, still admitted “‘total victory’ was not reached.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid went as far on Wednesday as to call the ceasefire “a diplomatic disaster at a level that I cannot remember. … Of all possible results, Netanyahu reached the worst.” 

Shas leader Aryeh Deri, a Security Cabinet observer and one of Netanyahu’s closest political allies, accused Lapid and others who made similar comments of “acting against the country for narrow, short-term political gain.” 

On Wednesday evening, Netanyahu made a live statement to reassure the public. 

“Iran is weaker than ever, and Israel is stronger than ever,” the prime minister said. “This is the bottom line … We have set the terrorist regime in Iran back many years. We have shaken its foundations. We have crushed it.”

However, Netanyahu added, “We still have goals to complete, and we will achieve them either by agreement or by the resumption of fighting. We are ready to return to combat at any necessary moment. … This is not the end of the campaign; this is a way station on the way to achieving all of our goals.” 

The mixed feelings from the public and the mixed messages from Netanyahu were backed up by experts who spoke to Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told JI that “it’s too early to sum up, because we need to see the results of the negotiations over the next two weeks, and what happens in Iran when the dust settles.” 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said that it is “too early to say” whether Israel is safer now than it was six weeks ago.

“We are at halftime,” Orion said. “The first part was military … but wars are not just a military competition, they are diplomatic and military. …The reality after exhausting the negotiations is how we will judge the war.” 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, told JI that “it’s too early to sum up, because we need to see the results of the negotiations over the next two weeks, and what happens in Iran when the dust settles.” 

That being said, Avivi was confident that Israel is safer than before the war began.

“The last six weeks were a huge drama, a total military defeat of a regional power,” he said. “Iran’s military industry, steel plants, petrochemical plants, navy, were almost entirely eliminated. … Essentially, Israel and the U.S. did whatever they wanted for the past month and a half. They attacked wherever they wanted. If they wanted to turn off the country’s electricity, they could have. … [Iran is] crushed militarily and economically.” 

Avivi did not view Israel as having been stopped by the U.S. mid-fight, citing the IDF as saying that they hit all the targets they had defined as important and reached a stage where the remaining targets were energy and economic sites. “That’s why the Iranians broke and wanted a ceasefire,” Avivi said.

“The nuclear project was harmed, but the enriched uranium is still in Iran, and it is unclear if they are closer to giving it up than before,” Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said. “That needs either a military solution or a deal, or the situation will get worse. … [Iran] may change its nuclear strategy for the worse, because with fewer capabilities, they are more motivated [to break out to nuclear weapons], and the knowledge and materials remain.” 

This was the right time for a ceasefire, Avivi posited, because the fighting had gotten to a point where the remaining targets were Iran’s economic abilities, and the Islamic Republic “basically surrendered,” and decided to agree to the U.S. demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without concessions from the U.S.

Orion, however, said that “Israel did very serious damage to Iran [which will last] for many years,” but still viewed the results of that damage as inconclusive.

“The nuclear project was harmed, but the enriched uranium is still in Iran, and it is unclear if they are closer to giving it up than before,” he said. “That needs either a military solution or a deal, or the situation will get worse. … [Iran] may change its nuclear strategy for the worse, because with fewer capabilities, they are more motivated [to break out to nuclear weapons], and the knowledge and materials remain.” 

As for Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, Orion said, “their industry is damaged and unable to produce large quantities … [but] they still retain about half of their capabilities, something like 1,200 missiles and over 200 launchers. It’s clear they can still create the terror effect and harass Israel and neighboring countries. … They can buy [drones] from Russia to threaten the Gulf states.” 

A central question pertaining to Iran’s ballistic missiles and other conventional capabilities, Orion said, is what it will rebuild, how quickly and whether China will help Tehran.

Avivi said he views Iran’s ballistic missile strategy as “totally ineffective, influencing nothing … sporadic and not targeted,” and noted that it did not damage Israeli military capabilities, while “every Israeli strike is a death blow to the regime, its industries or senior officials.” 

As for regime change, which was not an official war aim, Orion argued that it’s too early to know whether it will happen. “Trump said it already happened, but it’s really just a shift change. The [remaining] people are no less extreme,” he said.

Avivi said that reaching a ceasefire with the regime does not undermine the effort to change it: “The people can still take to the streets, and Israeli and American drones can back them up. This regime will crumble in the end, but it’s a process. It won’t happen in a day.”

One major downside of the war for Israel may be a deterioration in U.S. public opinion towards the Jewish state.

“On the one hand,” Orion said, “Israel proved itself as a military partner with capabilities and prowess to significantly help the U.S. with what it wanted to achieve. Israel was there from day one and took on most of the mission of clearing out Iran’s air defenses … It did a lot of the work when NATO didn’t want to.”

However, Orion pointed to a recent New York Times article that portrayed Israel as “dragging the U.S. into the war, even though it was a presidential decision in the end, contrary to the stances of senior [American] figures and public opinion on the left and right. It will take time to see the aftershocks.”

As to whether the ceasefire will last, Orion said that, while nothing is certain, a ceasefire is generally called when both sides “estimate that conditions would be improved by talking,” and noted that at the outset of the war, the Trump administration said it would likely take four to six weeks.

Avivi said that “Israel and the U.S. now have two weeks to regroup and rearm, which Iran isn’t able to do because it doesn’t have a military industry anymore.” 

Iran can spend the ceasefire “taking stock of the disaster that happened to them,” Avivi added.

Israel is working to launch direct negotiations with Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday.

“In light of the repeated requests from Lebanon to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the Security Cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,” Netanyahu said in a statement from his office.

Netanyahu’s announcement came as President Donald Trump said in a call with Israel’s Channel 13 that he told the prime minister to scale back its strikes on Lebanon. 

A source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider that talks would begin next week in Washington, with the U.S. facilitating. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, will represent their countries in the talks.

The negotiations, Netanyahu said, will focus on disarming Hezbollah and making peace between Israel and Lebanon.

“Israel appreciates the call today by Lebanon’s prime minister to demilitarize Beirut,” Netanyahu stated.

Minutes after Netanyahu’s announcement, Hezbollah shot rockets at northern Israel. 

Earlier Thursday, the Lebanese cabinet told the armed forces to ensure its monopoly on force in Beirut, meaning that Hezbollah would not be able to operate in the city. 

“The army and security forces are requested to immediately begin reinforcing the full imposition of state authority over Beirut Governorate and to monopolize weapons in the hands of legitimate authorities alone,” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said.

Meeting a day after Israel struck 100 targets in Beirut, the cabinet also decided to lodge a complaint against Israel with the United Nations Security Council. It called for Lebanon to be included in the current ceasefire in the Iran war.

Jerusalem and Washington have said that Israel’s war against Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire. 

Israel and Lebanon reached a ceasefire deal at the end of 2024, which was brokered by the Biden administration and supported by the incoming Trump administration. As part of the agreement, the Lebanese Armed Forces were meant to ensure Hezbollah was disarmed south of the Litani River, however, proved incapable of doing so, and the Shi’ite terrorist group amassed arms and fighters near the Lebanon-Israel border. 

The current round of fighting began soon after the war with Iran in late February, when Hezbollah began launching rockets, missiles and drones at Israel. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the Iranian proxy had shot 6,500 projectiles at Israel in 40 days.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has called to hold direct negotiations with Israel repeatedly over the past five weeks, including on Thursday.

Democratic Party activists on Thursday voted to reject a measure that criticized the involvement of AIPAC in Democratic primaries and the American political system. 

The resolution was debated during a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee at the DNC’s New Orleans meeting. Committee members were considering new policy resolutions, including one introduced by a Florida activist that took aim at AIPAC and the group’s “undue influence over democratic debate and policymaking.” It was voted down in a voice vote.

“The DNC made clear today that all Democrats, including millions who are AIPAC members, have the right to participate fully in the democratic process,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa told Jewish Insider.

Jewish Democratic advocates who were in the meeting room praised the decision. 

“We’re pleased that the resolution that wrongly singled out AIPAC was defeated, and that the other anti-Israel resolutions failed to move forward. These measures would be a gift to Republicans, would further fracture our party and do nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to peace,” Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick, who attended the meeting, told JI after the vote. 

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said the group agrees with the goal of getting dark money out of politics but that AIPAC should not be targeted explicitly.

“We agree with the rejection of dark money in politics — a topic covered in another more expansive resolution adopted by the committee — but also believe that singling out any individual organization is both unproductive and unnecessarily divisive,” Soifer, who also attended the meeting, told JI. 

Earlier in the meeting, the committee voted to support a measure “condemning the influence of dark money in the 2026 Democratic primary elections” that called out the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries. 

The vote by the DNC’s resolutions committee comes as the Democratic Party faces growing internal strife about its long-standing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, as some party activists seek to push the group to the left. A new Pew Research Center poll released this week revealed that 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have an unfavorable view of Israel — an increase from 69% who said the same last year. 

Two other resolutions that touched on Israel-related issues were referred to a working group on the Middle East that DNC Chair Ken Martin created last summer to help smooth over some of the party’s fissures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

One of these referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and called for conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel, and the other called for de-escalation in Iran and Gaza. A third resolution on the Middle East, condemning the U.S. missile strike that hit a girls’ school in Iran and killed at least 165 people, passed.

Despite skepticism over the terms and reports of ongoing Iranian strikes, several prominent hawkish Republicans are voicing support for President Donald Trump’s fragile two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among the most prominent backers of the war in the Senate, said in a post on X that a “diplomatic solution to end the reign of terror in Iran is the preferred outcome” but said he has concerns about the supposed 10-point plan presented by Iran, which would require the lifting of all U.S. sanctions on Iran, among other steps. 

U.S. officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, said the U.S. did not agree to that version of the deal, but that at least three versions of the Iranian proposal have circulated. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the original 10-point plan proposed by Iran was “fundamentally unserious” and was “literally thrown into the garbage by President Trump and his team.”

“I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said.

He added that all of Iran’s enriched uranium must be turned over to the United States and that Iran cannot have any enrichment capacity.

“To those who say, Iran needs to save face by having a small enrichment program, I’m not remotely interested in providing face-saving cover to a regime that murders its own people, beats a 16-year-old girl to death for not wearing a headscarf appropriately, and is dripping in American blood,” Graham said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on his podcast that he believes Trump was prepared to follow through on his threats against Iran, but agreed to hold off in response to Pakistan’s mediation efforts and Iran’s agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as he had demanded.

“Many of the military objectives have been accomplished. The military has been degraded almost out of existence,” Cruz said, though he acknowledged that it doesn’t take much for Iran to disrupt trade in the Strait of Hormuz. “There’s virtually no military left. It’s like four guys with a slingshot sitting on the back of a camel.”

But Cruz said he would be skeptical that the ceasefire would hold if Iran’s attacks on its neighbors continued.

He said his definition of success in Iran would be taking away Iran’s ability to kill Americans and innocent people in the region and its ability to become a nuclear power. He said that full regime change is the responsibility of the Iranian people, not the United States.

Responding to a post by Trump about the agreement and the damage to Iran’s nuclear program, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) said, “President Trump has always been crystal clear: there must be no uranium enrichment for Iran. And he’s absolutely right. That was a central flaw in Obama’s disastrous deal. Because the only reason Iran would demand to enrich uranium is to build a nuclear weapon.”

He didn’t address the substance of the ceasefire deal itself.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) praised Trump’s execution of the war and the ceasefire, saying that the war had shown that the U.S. is the strongest nation and has the strongest military on the planet.

“He has made it clear – Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. And so, it’s really through his efforts that the U.S. not only secured a temporary ceasefire but more importantly, they obtained a commitment from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Cramer said in a statement. “That has been his short-term goal in recent days, and it’s an important goal that affects a lot of people, not just the United States but our Middle East friends and certainly Europe.”

He called on other allies to step up — and predicted they would following the ceasefire agreement. But he also urged continued caution.

“Now we have to keep our eyes wide open obviously, it’s not like the Iranian regime is good for keeping its word, but in my mind, this is a pretty good breakthrough,” Cramer continued. “I’m grateful for President Trump’s unwavering dedication to defending our country and holding our adversaries accountable, and frankly, holding some allies accountable as well. I certainly hope they learned from this lesson.”

Other senior Republicans haven’t commented on the ceasefire agreement yet.

Off Capitol Hill, some prominent right-wing voices who have had the president’s ear are taking a different view of the deal.

Conservative commentator Mark Levin emphasized that Iran violated the ceasefire deal shortly after it was signed. He accused Iran of trying to use the negotiations to “blackmail us and Israel” to allow Hezbollah to continue its attacks on Israel and divide the U.S. and its allies.

“The 2-week ceasefire is being violated right now by the Iranian-Nazi regime.  Missiles are being fired into Israel and perhaps other countries in the region.  Are they able to defend themselves?” he said on X. We have the right man as president, and I bet he’s furious about this.”

“But this will be the question throughout — that is, do we expect the Iranian regime to honor a deal, how will we monitor it, and how will we enforce it.  These will all be very difficult issues to resolve,” he continued.

Responding to the 10-point Iranian proposal, Levin said simply, “Uh oh.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer said on X the deal is “a negative for our country” and “we didn’t really get anything out of it.”

Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, passed in response to the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran in 2015, any agreement pertaining to Iran’s nuclear capabilities must be submitted to Congress for its review, and Congress has the ability to vote to block any such agreement.

In spite of the ceasefire, Democrats are continuing to agitate for Trump’s removal from office and plan to pursue war powers resolutions to force an end to the war.

In a Dear Colleague letter on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Democrats plan to attempt to pass a war powers resolution during a pro-forma session on Thursday by unanimous consent — an effort that is likely to fail. 

Jeffries also said that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and committee Democrats plan to hold a briefing on Friday on “Trump administration accountability and the 25th Amendment” — indicating that the doomed push to remove Trump from office has backing from the top echelons of the Democratic Party.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Democrats are planning to force a vote on a war powers resolution next week, the fourth since the war began on Feb. 28, when the Senate returns from its own recess.

The war in Iran has cost Israel political support in the United States, according to a new Pew Research Center poll, which shows 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, with 37% viewing the Jewish state favorably.

The results not only reflect an overall decline in public support in recent years, but a significant seven-point drop since the pollster’s last survey in 2025, when it found 42% of respondents viewed Israel favorably and 55% unfavorably. The latest poll surveyed 3,507 U.S. adults between March 23-29, during the height of the joint U.S.-Israel military operations.

Perhaps most concerning for the pro-Israel community, the poll found that 57% of Republican respondents under 50 hold negative views towards Israel. That’s in stark contrast to the strong support it receives from older Republicans, with nearly 3 in 4 viewing the Jewish state favorably.

The survey found that positive views of Israel were concentrated among Jewish Americans (64% said they view Israel favorably) and evangelical Protestants (65% said they hold favorable views). 

The least supportive religious groups towards Israel were: American Muslims (4% favorability), the religiously unaffiliated (22% favorability), Black Protestants (33%) and Catholics (35%).

The poll also found that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to get low marks from the American public, with only 27% saying they trusted him to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” Nearly the same share of voters who viewed Israel unfavorably also held the Israeli prime minister in a negative light.

Pew also asked how important the conflict between Israel and Hamas was to respondents, and 53% rated it as a “very” or “somewhat” important issue. Nearly all Jewish respondents (91%) and 70% of Muslim respondents said what’s happening in the Middle East is of significant importance.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doubled down on his calls for two of his primary challengers in his reelection campaign to fire senior officials over their record of antisemitic statements after both candidates refused to do so — vowing on Tuesday to fight the growing tolerance for Jew-hatred in the GOP and call out aspiring lawmakers in South Carolina who excuse or embrace it. 

The South Carolina senator convened Christian and Jewish leaders for a call with reporters to criticize Paul Dans and Mark Lynch, who are challenging Graham in the Republican primary for his Senate seat, over Dans’ refusal to fire Vish Burra as his campaign communications director and Lynch declining to part ways with Evan Mulch as his political director despite their respective records of making antisemitic statements. 

Graham told reporters that while he would not typically make an issue of the behavior of staffers from an opposing campaign, he felt compelled to speak out because of the outgrowth of antisemitism in the Republican Party.

“I’m speaking more today as just an American, a senator representing South Carolina, rather than just a candidate. I’ve never had to make a phone call like this, and it, quite frankly, is disturbing,” Graham said. “There are two opponents of mine that have staff members that are very out of touch with where I think South Carolina is, and spewing hate in the form of antisemitism.”

“I’ve never done this before, but this is a problem in America, a small problem in the Republican Party, that I don’t want to grow,” he continued. “I seldom do this, go after other people’s campaigns, because I feel confident that what I’ve got to offer wins the day politically, but this is not about politics. This is not about my primary. This is about stopping something before it gets stronger, calling it out and making it unacceptable.”

Graham highlighted both staffers’ records at a news conference last Thursday and on Tuesday’s call, condemning Burra for depicting Jews as cockroaches in a video he created on the right-wing One America News Network, which ultimately resulted in his firing as a producer. 

Mulch, meanwhile, posted a photo  on X last June of a boot stepping on the Talmud and calling it a “hate filled book.”

“I call this out because I think it’s a vile antisemitic action. It has no place in politics or, quite frankly, decent society, and he hasn’t been fired,” Graham said on Tuesday. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Dans, in responding to the call to deal with the staffers, said that my campaign was controlled by Israel and that I’m being blackmailed by Israel and other affiliated groups, which I think is one of the oldest stereotypes, that the Jews control politicians.”

“When you step on the Talmud with a boot, I don’t think that’s American,” he added of Mulch. “I don’t think it’s Christian, and I don’t think there’s any place in running for higher office for people who engage in that behavior, and I’ve called for him to be fired with no response.”

While Graham said he does not believe it is inherently antisemitic to voice objections to the policies of the Israeli government, he argued that tolerance of such criticisms did equate to tolerance of blatant antisemitism.

“I’m a strong supporter of Israel, and you can oppose Israeli policies and not be an antisemite,” Graham said. “But when you’re an antisemite, not only do you oppose Israel, I think you oppose human decency and what America stands for.”

Graham told Jewish Insider on the call that he was confident “that when the people of South Carolina — Republicans, Democrats and independents — hear what’s going on, and that’s why I’m doing it today, it will be soundly rejected.”

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition; Sandra Hagee Parker, who chairs the board of CUFI Action Fund, the political arm of Christians United for Israel; and Rabbi Yossi Refson of Chabad of Charleston spoke on the call in support of Graham’s efforts.

“We have witnessed, I believe, sadly, the institutionalization of antisemitism in the Democratic Party,” Brooks told attendees. “For us at the Republican Jewish Coalition, let me be very clear and unambiguous that this is a fight that we will take everywhere. We will ensure that antisemitism does not take hold in our party like it has taken hold in the Democratic Party. The fabric of America was woven together based on Judeo-Christian values, the values that we all cherish are built in partnership with our Christian allies and friends. Anybody who traffics in antisemitic rhetoric or antisemitic actions has no place in our party.”

Graham vowed at the end of the call to continue his push to ensure elected Republicans in and out of the state are individuals who repudiate antisemitism.

“The breadth of condemnation here and the quality of the thoughts expressed not only give me hope and prove that I’m doing the right thing. It inspires me. I am not going to let this go after what I heard today. I am never going to let this go until my last breath. I will make sure that any group, but particularly the long suffering Jewish people, have my unequivocal support.”

Dans and Lynch were unapologetic about their campaign staffers, instead releasing statements late last week and Tuesday directing their ire at Graham in deeply personal terms. 

“He’s given a member of my campaign staff more attention than he’s given South Carolinians for decades,” Dans said in a statement last Thursday. “The real headline that you should be covering is how many opioid deaths happened in South Carolina last year on Lindsey Graham’s watch. Israel picks Lindsey Graham’s staff, but they do not pick mine. I am not firing Vish Burra and I am calling on the people of South Carolina to fire Lindsey Graham.”

Lynch, meanwhile, told JI in a statement on Tuesday evening that Graham was “an existential threat to both the nation of Israel and the United States.”

“Lindsey Graham is responsible for the deaths of countless Jews in Israel by the fact that he has sent 10s of millions of dollars to Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Al-Nusra Front — funding the enemies of Israel,” Lynch said.

At a Tuesday night event with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker at the University of Michigan, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on claims that the man who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield last month did so as a result of the pain he felt from the war in the Middle East. 

“Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” El-Sayed, a Democrat, said at a press conference alongside Piker, with whom he appeared at two campaign rallies in Michigan on Tuesday. “I also think it’s just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we’ve got to stand against violence, all violence.” 

El-Sayed’s comments reiterated a sentiment he expressed the day after a Lebanese American man drove a car packed with explosives into the synagogue. No one lost their lives in the incident. The assailant, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting at a security guard, had family members killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon — including his brother, a commander in Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia. 

Since El-Sayed’s initial statement, more details surrounding the attack have surfaced. The FBI said the attack was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community.” 

When a reporter from The Free Press pressed El-Sayed on his claim, asking whether a similar argument would have allowed sympathy for a Jewish person attacking a mosque after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, he suggested the circumstances were not the same. 

“After Oct. 7, there was a whole genocide against Palestinians,” El-Sayed said.

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, leftist streamer Hasan Piker and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Summer Lee (D-PA) dismissed criticism of Piker and his past antisemitic and anti-American comments at a rally at the University of Michigan on Tuesday — El-Sayed’s second event of the day with the controversial social media influencer.

The El-Sayed endorsers all brushed off the criticism of Piker’s record of antisemitic comments, support for terrorism and other controversial activity as a distraction from their message and other issues of the day, including the war in Iran.

“A lot of the people that are on the Republican side, the reactionary side, they, instead of talking about [the war in Gaza], decided to talk about me stumping for Abdul El-Sayed instead,” Piker said, dismissing criticism of him — which has come from Democrats as well — as a distraction.

Piker referred to the war in Iran as “Operation Epstein’s Fury” and the Trump administration as “a bunch of fascist monsters that got tuned up by Israel,” and closed out his remarks with “Free Palestine.”

“Every single dollar that is spent on a bomb is stolen from each and every one of you. That’s $1 that they spend blowing up a school overseas instead of building schools in your neighborhoods,” he continued, going on to blame support for Israel for the lack of universal healthcare in the United States, and to claim that U.S. taxpayers are paying for Israel’s healthcare system.

El Sayed said that he had heard that a pro-Israel group on campus planned to protest the rally — to boos from the crowd — but El-Sayed said that the group would be welcome in the room “because at the end of the day, we believe in the courage of our convictions and our ideals.”

During his remarks, El-Sayed took numerous swipes at AIPAC, accusing the pro-Israel advocacy group of “corrupting our entire politics.” He said he expects the pro-Israel organization will be the largest spender in the Senate primary — though it has not yet announced any plans to engage in the race and has never before spent money in a Senate campaign. 

He called the war in Iran “genocidal, illegal, unjustifiable” and accused fellow Democrats of hypocrisy for saying that they view the war as illegal but declining to rule out voting for supplemental funding to support the war effort.

He also insisted — in spite of his promotion of Piker — that he would be a strong voice against antisemitism, pointing to his own background as a Muslim and his “love and reverence” for all people.

Tlaib said she’d told Piker backstage that he would always be welcome in Michigan.

“The fact that, literally, they’re all like, ‘Defend our democracy. Oh, shut up, cancel him’ — make up your damn mind,” Tlaib said, addressing critics of Piker. “Make up your godd*** mind. We’re for everybody in the room or not. Give me a break.”

Tlaib praised El-Sayed as someone closely aligned with her anti-Israel views, including support for blocking aid to the Jewish state. 

“I’ve been there seven years, and I’m tired of having to beg my colleagues to do the right thing, to not take money from the people that hurt us, not to literally spend resources and funding like this for war and destruction and death,” Tlaib said. “If any member of Congress or Senate can support a genocide like that, what else are they supporting right here in our backyard at home.”

Lee, like Piker and El-Sayed, dismissed the controversy over the rally as an attempt by people “who don’t want us talking to people who might rock the boat” to silence and stop the rally.

Other speakers at the rally included UM regent candidate Amir Makled, an attorney who provided pro bono representation to anti-Israel protesters at the university who faced criminal charges for their role in the demonstration, Summit Louth, the newly elected president of UM’s student government and Yousef Rabhi, a county commissioner.

“It was right here on this campus that students were punished for speaking out at the Diag, and it was right here on this campus where that outrage, the irreprehensible conduct of our Board of Regents punished students for speaking out against the genocide that students were charged with felonies just for the words of ‘free Palestine,’” Makled claimed.

Among other issues, Louth praised El-Sayed for calling the war in Gaza a genocide and for condemning the war in Iran and the Israeli operations in Lebanon.

“As we all saw this morning, the deranged president of this country issued a genocidal ultimatum on an entire country. F*** him. F*** that. We need to take our country back,” Rabhi said. “Instead of putting forward money to pay for your tuition, they are bombing people halfway across the world. Instead of paying money to make sure that we have single payer universal health care in this country, they are murdering innocent people. “

President Donald Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson on Tuesday after the far-right podcaster used his most recent show to accuse the president of steering the U.S. toward nuclear war with Iran and to suggest, in apocalyptic terms, that Trump might be waging a stealth attack on Christianity.

In a phone interview with the New York Post, Trump described Carlson as a “low IQ” individual who frequently tries to speak with him by phone, adding that he has stopped responding to his calls.

“Tucker’s a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump told the outlet of Carlson. “He calls me all the time. I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”

The remarks came in response to a lengthy monologue Carlson delivered on his Monday podcast. There, Carlson excoriated Trump for issuing an expletive-filled Truth Social post on Easter, in which the president warned that the U.S. was prepared to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges if Tehran did not open the Strait of Hormuz.

Carlson called the post “vile on every level,” particularly for its language on a major Christian holiday, and framed it as the opening move toward nuclear conflict. He speculated that Trump might be pursuing something far larger than conventional military escalation — an effort to provoke Armageddon and undermine Christian faith.

“Is it possible that what you’re watching is a very stealthy yet incredibly effective attack on what, from a Christian perspective, is the true-faith belief in Jesus?” Carlson asked. “Is it possible the president sees this in bigger terms? Sees this as the fulfillment of something? An elevation to some higher office beyond president of the United States?”

“Is it just a conventional escalation ladder in a badly thought out war?” he continued. “Could it be something bigger? Is it possible what you’re watching is a very stealthy yet incredibly effective attack on what, from a Christian perspective, is the true faith: belief in Jesus?”

The former Fox News host then claimed that the reason the president did not put his hand directly on the Bible when being sworn in for his second term last January was because he “rejects” the “limits on human behavior” in the Bible. 

Carlson went on to urge Trump administration officials to resign or refuse to obey orders if the president were to order them to strike Iran with a nuclear weapon. 

“Those people who are in direct contact with the president need to say, ‘No, I’ll resign. I’ll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane, and if you give the order, I’m not carrying it out. Figure out the codes on the football yourself,’ because everything hangs in the balance right now,” he explained.

The pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC launched its first ad of the 2026 campaign, targeting frequent Democratic candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, accusing him of hypocrisy and of flip-flopping on his positions.

The ad, set to air on television, contrasts past comments by Campa-Najjar about whether he would work with President Donald Trump or support his impeachment with his current hostile stance toward the president — running now in a bluer district.

It also highlights past inconsistencies in his stance on abortion — he once opposed it in all cases, but later described himself as pro-choice.

“Ammar Campa-Najjar has been a DSA-backed candidate whose record of flip-flops on Trump, impeachment, and abortion makes clear he will say whatever it takes to get elected, and voters in CA-48 see right through it,” DMFI president Brian Romick said in a statement.

DMFI is backing San Diego City Council member Marnie von Wilpert for the open seat, which was redrawn to favor Democrats. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who currently represents the district, is retiring from Congress.

Campa-Najjar, who was born in California and raised in Gaza, is the son of a Palestinian Authority official. He has run unsuccessfully for Congress two times before, losing to Issa by eight points in 2020 and losing to former Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) in 2018. 

He is the boyfriend of Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), who represents a nearby southern California district. 

Romick and DMFI argued that nominating Campa-Najjar would endanger Democrats’ chances of winning the seat. It’s making a similar case in two other GOP-held swing districts the group is hoping to help flip.

“A candidate who can’t hold a consistent position on the most basic issues isn’t just untrustworthy, he’s unelectable,” Romick continued. “DMFI PAC’s Majority Project is fighting to take back the House, and that means making sure seats like CA-48 are won by candidates with the credibility to actually deliver. Campa-Najjar is not that candidate.”

Top Democrats across both chambers condemned President Donald Trump for threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight” in Iran, with some pushing for Trump’s immediate removal from office over the threat and his conduct of the war.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and other members of Democratic leadership including Reps. Katherine Clark (D-MA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Joe Neguse (D-CO) and Suzan DelBene (D-WA), issued a statement calling Trump “unhinged” and saying that he risks bringing the country “into World War III” unless Congress reconvenes to vote to bring the war to an end.

“For years, Republicans have enabled and excused Donald Trump’s deeply dangerous and extreme behavior. Enough is enough,” the leaders said. “Our brave men and women in uniform have been put into harm’s way in the Middle East. Over a dozen have already been killed and hundreds injured. Gas prices are skyrocketing, the cost of living in America is out of control and billions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted on a reckless war of choice.”

In another joint statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), who are the top Democrats on several relevant committees and subcommittees, similarly condemned Trump’s comments, saying they indicate an intent to commit war crimes.

“This is not strength. Intentionally destroying the power, water, or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend to punish the very civilians who suffer at the hands of the Iranian regime would constitute a war crime, a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on, and a moral failure,” the lawmakers said. “It’s unconscionable to threaten the lives of so many people — grandparents, children, families — simply because they were born in Iran.”

They said that Trump’s comment “makes Americans less safe, further destabilizes our nation and economy, and puts at greater risk U.S. service members,” as well as makes a diplomatic solution — ”the only viable solution to this war” — harder to achieve.

In a separate statement, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also said that Trump’s threat constitutes a war crime and an illegal action under international law which risks tens of millions of Iranian civilians, and potentially catastrophic after-effects.

“At this critical moment, the United States must pursue immediate de-escalation and a coordinated diplomatic strategy with our allies. We cannot allow Iran to simply reset to a dangerous status quo — but the answer is not to threaten war crimes and isolate us from every partner we need to end this conflict,” Meeks said. Trump’s threat is “recklessness that America and the region will pay for long after this president is gone,” he added.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who prior to the war was one of the few Democrats who said he would oppose a war powers resolution — though he ultimately voted for it after the war began — demanded that the House immediately reconvene for a war powers vote. Moskowitz’s comments are a sign that Trump’s latest comments have crossed a line even for some of the most hawkish Democrats in the House.

“Speaker Johnson must immediately reconvene the House to vote on a war powers resolution. It’s beyond clear we are at war,” Moskowitz said. “The Speaker’s legacy will be that he made Congress so irrelevant that a president can threaten to wipe out a civilization while Congress is on vacation.”

Jeffries said Democrats plan to bring up another war powers resolution to halt the conflict in Iran, which stands a stronger chance of passing than a previous one, when the House returns from its recess. At least some of the Democrats who voted against the previous resolution are expected to support this one, and a small number of additional Republicans may join them.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), one of four House Democrats who voted against the previous war powers resolution on the war in Iran last month, announced he will now support such an effort because the administration has failed to provide adequate answers about its goals and its exit strategy.

“[W]e must be careful with the language we use. Strength and destruction are not the same,” Cuellar added. “When the United States echoes the rhetoric of its adversaries, we risk weakening the values that have long defined our leadership.”

Several Democrats have described Trump’s comments as a threat to commit genocide.

Trump’s threat has also prompted growing calls from at least 70 House Democrats for his removal from office, either through impeachment or the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which allows the involuntary removal of a president from power if he is mentally or physically unfit to govern.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined those calls.

“Donald Trump is deranged,” Wyden said. “He must be impeached and removed from office. Republicans who don’t stop him will have blood on their hands, and anyone who carries out an order to bomb civilian targets will be complicit in war crimes and will be held accountable.”

Markey called the president “unstable and a clear and present danger, not just to the American people but to the world” and said he “must be removed from office before he causes incalculable and unfathomable harm.” He said that a war powers resolution to stop the war is now insufficient to address the situation.

A small number of Republicans are also airing concerns with Trump’s threat.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), one of the few Republicans who has been openly skeptical of the war effort in Iran, said that Trump’s threat “cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran.”

“This type of rhetoric is an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years. It undermines our long-standing role as a global beacon of freedom and directly endangers Americans both abroad and at home,” Murkowski said, calling for deescalation by both Trump and Iran, and insisting that the U.S. must draw a distinction between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people.

Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) said that, while he has supported the war thus far, “I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization.’ That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America.”

“[W]hat sets America apart is not only our strength, but how we use it. Our nation has always conducted military operations for just causes and through just and moral means. This must continue in the future; otherwise we forfeit our legitimacy to lead the world,” Moran said. “[H]ow we protect the lives of the innocent is just as important as how we engage the enemy.”

Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA), who recently left the Republican Party but remains part of the GOP caucus and has generally been hawkish on Iran, said that the U.S. “does not destroy civilizations. Nor do we threaten to do so as some sort of negotiating tactic.”

“Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight with respect to ongoing military operations and our obligations under both U.S. law and international agreements to which we are a signatory,” Kiley said.

Jewish groups criticized the American Association of Geographers after its members pushed for an academic boycott of Israel at the organization’s annual meeting, which featured overwhelmingly one-sided presentations against the Jewish state.  

The Anti-Defamation League and Academic Engagement Network highlighted biased programming including sessions called “BDS and the AAG,” “Mapping and Counter-Mapping Genocide” and “No Geographic Technology for Apartheid” at the AAG’s March 17-21 conference in San Francisco. 

The sessions, which were organized by an unofficial group of AAG members called Geographers for Justice in Palestine, “did not appear to encourage balanced discussion or meaningful debate, and in some cases exhibited a marked erosion of scholarly standards,” the Jewish organizations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. 

Some Jewish members began to feel alienated from the association during last year’s annual meeting in Detroit, which also featured programming that was hostile to Israel. 

“I was deeply disturbed by the inclusion and promotion of sessions that allowed for inflammatory, biased and harmful rhetoric, far removed from academic rigor or geographic inquiry,” Liora Sahar, an Israeli-American member of AAG, told Jewish Insider last year. 

Shira Goodman, vice president of advocacy at the ADL, and Miriam Elman, executive director of AEN, said they raised concerns with the organization last March following its meeting and expressed worry that anti-Israel programming has become a pattern within the association. 

“At that time, we urged AAG leadership to review its session selection and vetting processes. The apparent lack of progress on these matters raises serious questions about the association’s commitment to maintaining academic integrity and ensuring that its convenings reflect the highest standards of scholarship and discourse,” said Goodman and Elman.

“Academic conferences should be spaces that foster rigorous inquiry, respectful debate, and the exchange of diverse perspectives. While critical discourse — including criticism of government policies — is a legitimate and essential component of academic life, we are concerned that these standards were not upheld at the recent AAG Annual Meeting, where some sessions lacked factual accuracy, intellectual openness, and a commitment to civil engagement,” continued Goodman and Elman. 

They warned that the “continued pattern of programming that lacks civility, disregards factual complexity, and promotes exclusionary academic practices risks causing reputational harm to the association and to the broader academic community it represents.” 

The groups called on “AAG leadership to take these concerns seriously and implement meaningful reforms.” 

Over the summer, AAG joined a growing list of professional associations facing pressure to adopt a boycott of Israel after a member petition urged the association “to endorse the campaign for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”

Last month, AAG said there has not yet been a vote on the petitioners’ demands. 

AAG did not respond to a request for comment from JI asking about this year’s conference. 

👋 Good Tuesday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on President Donald Trump’s doubling down on his threat to strike Iranian power plants if Tehran does not reopen of the Strait of Hormuz by tonight’s 8 p.m. deadline, and look at how Iran’s closure of the key waterway is forcing countries to consider alternatives, such as the proposed India-Middle East-Europe Corridor. We preview today’s special election runoff in Georgia to fill the rest of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s term, and report on plans by Texas Democrats to vote on a series of anti-Israel and anti-AIPAC resolutions at their upcoming party convention. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Esther Panitch, John Kirby and Bill Ackman.

Ed. note: In observance of Passover, the next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Friday, April 10.

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

• President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — or face attacks on its power grids and bridges — expires at 8 p.m. ET. Earlier today, the IDF reportedly warned civilians to stay away from trains, an indication that the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure could be targeted. More below.
• Members of the Democratic National Committee are kicking off a five-day meeting today in New Orleans, where the DNC’s resolutions committee is set to consider resolutions condemning AIPAC and Israel. The resolutions were proposed by a Florida delegate who last year attempted to push through a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel. Read more here.
• Voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District head to the polls today for the special election runoff to choose a successor to fill out the remainder of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) term. District Attorney Clay Fuller, a Republican, is the favorite against Democrat Shawn Harris — but will likely need a decisive win today to stave off potential primary challengers in the GOP primary for the regular election later this spring. More below.
• In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) will hold rallies on the University of Michigan and Michigan State University campuses with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who is coming under increasing criticism for his antisemitic and anti-American rhetoric.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Today’s special election runoff in Georgia between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris to determine the successor to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) isn’t much in doubt. The northwestern Georgia district that Greene represented backed President Donald Trump by 37 points in 2024, one of the largest GOP margins in the country.

What makes the otherwise sleepy contest significant is the potential for the results to indicate if there are any fissures within the MAGA coalition, ones that may represent Republican discontent with Trump’s hawkish turn amid the Iran war. In this race, the margins will be as notable as the winner. 

Greene, since leaving Congress, has emerged a loud Republican voice against the Iran war and against Trump’s strong alliance with Israel. Fuller, a military veteran with a background in counterterrorism operations and district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, has been a stalwart supporter of Trump’s military operations in the Middle East, and Trump has endorsed him in the race.

Harris, the Democrat, holds foreign policy views closer to the isolationist Greene, attacking the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC and describing Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide” — views which place him on the left flank of the Democratic Party. This despite Harris’ time serving as defense attache in Israel during his years in the National Guard, work history that he has not publicized during the campaign.

It’s worth noting that Greene, since she was first elected to the seat in 2020, has underperformed Trump’s standing in the district, only winning 64% of the vote against Harris in 2024 — four points below Trump’s 68% showing at the top of the ticket. And since breaking with Trump in his second term, her political standing has taken an even bigger hit.

Greene has not endorsed either candidate in the race.

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

WAY OF WATER

Strait of Hormuz closure raises opportunities for alternative shipping routes

With Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy markets, other countries in the region may begin to pursue alternative routes to transport energy and other goods, but they are far from ready to be put into use, experts told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov this week. 

Back in focus: One of the highest-profile routes is the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), proposed by the Biden administration in September 2023 as a route for trade, energy and more; it would go from India, through Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Israel, then across the Mediterranean to Europe through Greece. Now that the Iranian threat to block the strait has been realized, IMEC and other alternative routes to ship oil and gas from the Gulf are back in focus. Gabriel Mitchell, an expert on energy security and a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told JI that “the threat and challenge posed with the Strait of Hormuz has raised questions about East-West shipping, traffic and global energy trade to the maximum.”

Read the full story here.

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TEXAS TURMOIL

Texas Dems to consider resolutions on Israel arms embargo, blasting pro-Israel groups

Texas Democratic Party activists are set to consider a series of resolutions condemning Israel for alleged genocide and pushing for an arms embargo, as well as criticizing pro-Israel involvement in U.S. politics — characterizing it as foreign influence in American elections — and urging penalties for candidates who accept their support, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they’re doing: One resolution on AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel would set as party policy that Texas Democrats should reject campaign contributions, endorsements and other support from pro-Israel groups. Several of the resolutions accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide, and urge Democratic lawmakers from the state and nationally to support a halt to not only U.S. financial aid to Israel but also any shipments of weapons purchased from the U.S. and logistical support provided to Israel until international human rights groups declare that Israel is no longer engaged in apartheid or genocide.

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TOUGH TALK

Trump reiterates threats to hit Iran’s economic engine if no deal reached by Tuesday

President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to escalate the war in Iran on Monday if Iranian leaders do not agree to a broad ceasefire deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday evening deadline, warning that the U.S. would target every bridge and power plant still standing in the country, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

What he said: Trump took a hawkish posture while speaking to reporters at the White House alongside senior U.S. defense officials about the ongoing war and diplomatic efforts to bring it to a close, warning that the U.S. has a plan to take out Iran’s entire transportation and energy infrastructure within “four hours” if Iran did not make a deal. “I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think, in good faith. We’re going to find out. … After [8 p.m. ET on Tuesday], they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages,” Trump said, referring to the deadline he set for Iran to agree to his terms, which has now been postponed three times.

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FACT CHECK

Former intelligence official Joe Kent amplifies false Iranian propaganda about U.S. war

Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned over his opposition to the Iran war, shared a post on social media spreading false claims from Iranian state-linked media and Drop Site News that the U.S. was attempting to kill the servicemember whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran over the weekend prior to him being rescued, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. 

Propaganda post: The initial statement on Saturday from Drop Site, a far-left news outlet sympathetic to Hamas and totalitarian regimes, cited a report by Tasnim News, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claiming that the U.S. had “lost hope” of recovering an airman whose jet was downed over Iran on Friday and was instead “attempting to kill him.” The post was then amplified by Kent with the message: “Praying for the rescue of our downed pilot & the safe return of our Special Operators going in to get him back. [U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen and Combat Search and Rescue] Air crews are top notch.” 

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SEDER AT THE STATEHOUS

Georgia politicos gather for first-of-its-kind ‘Sine Die Seder’

On Thursday, a group of Jewish Georgia politicos gathered for a first-of-its-kind-event at the Georgia Statehouse: the “Sine Die Seder,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Organized by state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Democrat and the only Jewish member of the Georgia General Assembly, the event brought together around 30 Jewish staffers, journalists, lobbyists, interns, a former attorney general and more to celebrate Passover on the final night of the legislative session, known as sine die. 

In the room: Panitch said that she had asked the House majority leader to cancel the House session on Wednesday, the first night of Passover — and he obliged — but the House was still scheduled to be in session for the second night. “And so I said, ‘Well, we’re going to be at the Capitol on the second night. Why don’t we have a Seder for probably the 10 of us in the building that are Jewish,’” Panitch told JI, referring to herself and a handful of interns, staff and reporters, during the hourlong dinner break during the session. Interest in the event ballooned, with the group ultimately growing to around 30.

Read the full story here.

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NOT CONVINCED

Fox Nation highlights post-Oct. 7 surge in Jewish engagement as part of new series on religion

From mass baptisms to packed pews, a new Fox Nation documentary chronicles a profound spiritual awakening it suggests is sweeping America. The five-part series, “Revival with Lawrence Jones,” includes a spotlight on the renewed embrace of religious identity among Jews following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Embrace of Jewish life: Episode 3 of the new series, “Jewish Identity,” highlights the record-breaking “Big Shabbat” held in New York City last November. It also features a conversation between “Fox and Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones, the series’ host, and Israeli activist Noa Tishby about her own Jewish identity; and an interview with Rabbi Joshua Davidson, who leads Temple Emanu-El, the oldest Reform congregation in New York City, which organized the “Big Shabbat.” “There’s no question that since Oct. 7 there has been a resurgence of interest in Jewish life and commitment to the organized Jewish community,” said Davidson. 

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Groypers Gripes: The New Yorker’s Antonia Hitchens examines the degree to which the far-right fringe is entrenching itself in Republican politics. “I asked a political consultant in Washington to summarize. ‘Groypers are about demographic change,’ the consultant said. ‘It’s a sovereignty issue. It’s literally, like, “Who runs my f***ing country? Why do all these people get access to my birthright — not just before me but that might be denied to me? Do I get a deal better than somebody who runs across a border?”’ [Nick] Fuentes offers a more concise gloss. ‘There are basically two things that are going on,’ he said recently. ‘White genocide and Jewish subversion.’” [NewYorker]

Everyone’s War: In The Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead posits that “every great and near-great power is adjusting its foreign-policy strategies” in response to the Iran war. “The war shows us all that the security of the Gulf matters to everyone. If at the end of the war Iran retains the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, every country on earth will need Tehran’s blessing to access vital fuel and supplies. Whatever one thinks of Mr. Trump and his decision to initiate hostilities, a quick and comprehensive American victory offers the best hope for a peaceful future in the Gulf and beyond.” [WSJ]

Mind the Gap: In his Substack “Between Us,” Nadav Eyal considers the disconnect between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry as the two become increasingly distant even as both face steep challenges. “But diaspora Jews represent the ability to survive and flourish over thousands of years, sometimes in difficult conditions, and above all with a remarkable preservation of their identity. They have successfully created communities with thriving institutions based on self-generated investment. The call to recognize the deep and independent value of Jewish life in the diaspora is not a rejection or dilution of the Jewish right to Eretz Yisrael. It is simply a correction of an error — one that Israelis cannot afford to make.” [BetweenUs]

Word on the Street

The Trump administration’s Board of Peace has given Hamas until the end of the week to accept a disarmament proposal, with Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s director-general, warning on X,  “He who will not cross the river will drown in the sea”…

The Wall Street Journal looks at Israeli and U.S. efforts to target Iran’s economy as Washington and Jerusalem appear poised to strike key Iranian infrastructure…

Politico profiles Harmeet Dhillon as the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights is rumored to be under consideration to replace former Attorney General Pam Bondi or to be tapped for another senior Justice Department role…

Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), the first Iranian American Democrat to serve in Congress, announced she was introducing articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran, citing his “reckless endangerment of U.S. servicemembers and repeated war crimes”…

An appellate court reinstated a $656 million judgment against the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization following a 2025 Supreme Court ruling allowing American victims of Palestinian terror to sue the groups under the 1992 Anti-Terrorism Act…

The New Yorker does a deep dive into OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s professional trajectory and leadership of the artificial intelligence company…

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital made a bid for Universal Music Group, valuing the company at $63.5 billion; if successful, the acquisition would merge Universal with Pershing Square Sparc Holdings and move its stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange…

The head of the University of Washington’s Middle East Center was removed from his leadership position shortly after sending an email through the center’s listserv criticizing the war in Iran; Aria Fani will continue to hold his position as an associate professor at the school… 

A private Catholic school in Fairfield, Conn., said it had disciplined students who were involved in a series of antisemitic social media posts targeting a rival school’s hockey team…

U.K. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson called on organizers of this summer’s Wireless Festival to drop Kanye West as the concert’s headliner over his past “completely unacceptable and absolutely disgusting” antisemitic comments, as U.K. officials reportedly consider revoking permission for West, who offered to meet with the British Jewish community, to enter the country… 

Meanwhile, the festival’s promoter defended West’s “legal right to perform” in the U.K., as Diageo and Anheuser-Busch InBev joined PepsiCo in dropping their sponsorships of the summer concert series…

Ret. Rear Adm. John Kirby, who served as White House national security communications advisor in the Biden administration, is joining MS NOW as a national security analyst…

Pic of the Day

Prominent Jewish figures and senior Trump administration officials gathered at the White House on Monday afternoon for an event hosted by President Donald Trump commemorating the Passover holiday, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Administration officials in attendance at the event, which was closed to the press and took place in the Indian Treaty Room, included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick; White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf; James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs; Jacob Reses, chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin; Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison; and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Others spotted at the event were Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association; Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jeff Miller, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; Jonathan Burkan, United States Holocaust Memorial Council member; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); Paul Packer, the former chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad; Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, member of the Religious Liberty Commission and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Read more here.

Birthdays

Professional golfer who joined the PGA Tour in 2015 when he won Rookie of the Year, he has since won four tournaments, Daniel Berger turns 33…

Professor emerita of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Marilyn Ann Friedman turns 81… President of Yale University for 20 years, then CEO of Coursera, an education-focused technology company, Richard Charles “Rick” Levin turns 79… Consultant on aging, longevity, law and policy, Naomi Karp turns 76… Software engineer at FlightView, Jonathan Ruby… Professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, he was born in Haifa, Israel, Simon J. Bronner turns 72… Los Angeles-based casting director, Jane Sobo… Former director of project staffing at Tower Legal Solutions in Addison, Texas, Ilene Robin Breitbarth… Former member of the House of Commons of Canada from the Winnipeg area, Martin B. Morantz turns 64… Screenwriter, actress and director, Andrea Berloff turns 52… White House and Congress editor for USA Today, Darren Samuelsohn… Chicago-based progressive activist, he is a co-founder of Project Shema, Oren Jacobson… Principal owner of JRL Strategy, helping expats relocate overseas, Justin Ross Lee… Senior director of communications at Leidos, Gregory Hellman… Reporter covering the White House and Washington for Politico, Daniel Lippman… Executive director of Camp Seneca Lake for the JCC of Greater Rochester (N.Y.), she was previously an associate director of communications at AIPAC, Marissa Wizig Klegman… Managing partner of Reno-based Mazal Capital, David Farahi… Pitcher and first baseman for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Ben Wanger turns 29…

Today’s special election runoff in Georgia between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris to determine the successor to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) isn’t much in doubt. The northwestern Georgia district that Greene represented backed President Donald Trump by 37 points in 2024, one of the largest GOP margins in the country.

What makes the otherwise sleepy contest significant is the potential for the results to indicate if there are any fissures within the MAGA coalition, ones that may represent Republican discontent with Trump’s hawkish turn amid the Iran war. In this race, the margins will be as notable as the winner. 

Greene, since leaving Congress, has emerged a loud Republican voice against the Iran war and against Trump’s strong alliance with Israel. Fuller, a military veteran with a background in counterterrorism operations and district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, has been a stalwart supporter of Trump’s military operations in the Middle East, and Trump has endorsed him in the race.

Harris, the Democrat, holds foreign policy views closer to the isolationist Greene, attacking the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC and describing Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide” — views which place him on the left flank of the Democratic Party. This despite Harris’ time serving as defense attache in Israel during his years in the National Guard, work history that he has not publicized during the campaign.

It’s worth noting that Greene, since she was first elected to the seat in 2020, has underperformed Trump’s standing in the district, only winning 64% of the vote against Harris in 2024 — four points below Trump’s 68% showing at the top of the ticket. And since breaking with Trump in his second term, her political standing has taken an even bigger hit.

Greene has not endorsed either candidate in the race.

If Harris wins over 40% of the vote in this ruby-red district, it’s a sign that Democrats are making inroads into rock-ribbed conservative turf, potentially over frustrations with rising gas prices and the Iran war. But if he doesn’t perform much better than he did in 2024 — and he only won 37% of the vote in the first round of balloting, compared to the 36% he tallied two years ago — it’s a sign that the media hype over a MAGA fissure is greatly overstated. 

The election also carries some relevance for another big political showdown in Georgia later this year: Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) reelection campaign. Given a divided GOP primary field and an unfavorable national environment for Republicans, Ossoff starts with some advantages in what otherwise looks like a tough reelection.

If the GOP base turns out strongly for Fuller, it’s a sign that Republicans will still be able to rely on conservative voter enthusiasm and engagement in the run-up to the closely watched Senate battleground.

But if there are signs of GOP weakness in one of the reddest parts of the state, it would be evidence that Trump’s political problems aren’t just limited to swing voters, but could extend to even redder states and districts on the battleground map. 

From mass baptisms to packed pews, a new Fox Nation documentary chronicles a profound spiritual awakening it suggests is sweeping America. The five-part series, “Revival with Lawrence Jones,” includes a spotlight on the renewed embrace of religious identity among Jews following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.  

Episode 3 of the new series, “Jewish Identity,” highlights the record-breaking “Big Shabbat” held in New York City last November. It also features a conversation between “Fox and Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones, the series’ host, and Israeli activist Noa Tishby about her own Jewish identity; and an interview with Rabbi Joshua Davidson, who leads Temple Emanu-El, the oldest Reform congregation in New York City, which organized the “Big Shabbat.”   

“In this moment, we wanted to make two statements: One, that we are not afraid to come together proudly as Jews, and two, that the best way to defeat those who would seek to do us harm is to embrace with full heart and energy the joy and beauty of Jewish life,” Davidson said at the start of the episode, which first aired on April 2. 

“There’s no question that since Oct. 7 there has been a resurgence of interest in Jewish life and commitment to the organized Jewish community,” continued Davidson. “It’s said that younger Jews are disaffiliating, moving away from Jewish life. I actually find the reverse to be true. The people that come through our doors are deeply committed to Israel, are deeply committed to Jewish engagement. Our tradition has the power to sustain our people.”

Jones told Jewish Insider he included the surge of Jewish engagement as a part of the series because “America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and it is essential to highlight not only the growing number of young people flocking to churches, but also those returning to synagogues and the significance of Big Shabbat in that revival.”   

Previously, the Guiness World Record for the largest Shabbat dinner in history occurred in Berlin with 2,322 guests during the European Maccabi Games in 2015.  

Temple Emanu-El broke the record when it hosted 2,761 attendees at the Javits Center in Manhattan. The evening included 402 challahs, 811 pounds of potatoes and 59 guests named David and 27 named Rachel, Washington Jewish Week reported.

“All of this in spite of antisemitism,” notes Jones over footage of the Shabbat dinner. In the months following Oct. 7, Anti-Defamation League data showed antisemitic incidents surged by 361%, with over half of American Jews changing their routines due to fear.

“I look around and I don’t see a dying religion, I see a revival,” says Jones as the episode closes. “Sometimes it can be scary to embrace your identity. For Jews, that takes on a different importance. What I’m seeing is this ancient peoplehood will continue to survive and thrive. It takes an embrace of tradition while still looking towards the future. A celebration of joy when times are dark. And a reminder that there is more that unites us than divides us.” 

“I think in the most beautiful ways, it’s inescapable,” Tishby told Jones of Judaism. “I’ve seen people who don’t live it and then at some point in their lives they’ll have a feeling in their gut that they need to understand what this thing is. I encourage anyone who is curious about the culture, religion and tradition — or was born Jewish and is not connected — to really go deep.” 

Other episodes in the series take an inside look at the next generation of evangelical Christians, the connection between faith and sports, the largest one-day baptism in American history and Christian music breaking into the mainstream. 

Texas Democratic Party activists are set to consider a series of resolutions condemning Israel for alleged genocide and pushing for an arms embargo, as well as criticizing pro-Israel involvement in U.S. politics — characterizing it as foreign influence in American elections — and urging penalties for candidates who accept their support.

Close to 20 resolutions have been introduced on these issues ahead of the Texas Democratic Party’s convention in late June. They would need to be considered and approved at preliminary levels before being put before the full convention.

The resolutions echo similar efforts being undertaken within the Democratic National Committee at a meeting in New Orleans this week, and within other state-level parties across the country. The resolutions were introduced by seven individuals, and several of the resolutions are highly repetitive of, if not identical to, others. 

Several of the resolutions suggest that U.S. institutions are compromised by pro-Israel interests, which they describe as vectors of “foreign interference in U.S. elections.” 

“Foreign-aligned political action committees and advocacy organizations exert disproportionate influence in U.S. elections through coordinated expenditures, endorsements, and political pressure that undermine democratic accountability,” one of the resolutions states, going on to specify that it is referring to “the political network commonly referred to as the ‘Israel Lobby.’”

The resolution names both AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, claiming they “exist primarily to promote policies aligned with the interests of a foreign government rather than the independent interests of Democratic voters” and that their policies have “contributed to prolonged military entanglements, regional instability, civilian suffering, and the erosion of U.S. credibility abroad, while failing to achieve lasting peace or security.”

The resolution, and another similar one, would set as party policy that Texas Democrats should reject campaign contributions, endorsements and other support from pro-Israel groups, and seek to penalize Democratic candidates who accept their assistance with measures such as withdrawal of party endorsements, ineligibility for fundraising and campaign assistance and censure and review by the state party ethics committee.

The resolution urges local Democratic parties to adopt similar penalty policies.

It further urges Democrats to investigate AIPAC and DMFI as potentially violating lobbying disclosure and foreign agent statutes.

Several of the resolutions accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide, and urge Democratic lawmakers from the state and nationally to support a halt to not only U.S. financial aid to Israel but also any shipments of weapons purchased from the U.S. and logistical support provided to Israel until international human rights groups declare that Israel is no longer engaged in apartheid or genocide.

Some of the resolutions urge adoption of a statewide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy, calling for Texas state institutions to cut ties with companies implicated in to Israel’s supposed genocide. One resolution calls for the creation of a statewide task force to review Texas’ “financial, institutional and trade relationships” with states engaged in genocide and to require “public reporting on any associations with entities implicated in genocide or human rights violations.”

Another urges Texas Democrats and others to support the congressional Block the Bombs Act and the Justice for Hind Rajab Act, as well as to investigate American citizens who have volunteered for the IDF for participation in “gross violations of human rights … and subject the perpetrators of such violations to Congressional Oversight or prosecution as appropriate.”

Still another describes the state’s existing anti-BDS law as an “infringement of the [F]irst [A]mendment” and states that it should be a “top legislative priority” for the state Democratic Party to seek its repeal.

“Anything short of that is a derelict of duty to represent the people of Texas and ensure their constitutional rights are fully protected,” the resolution continues.

Other resolutions call for the recognition of Palestinian statehood. One of those also urges support for the release of “Palestinian political prisoners detained without trial in Israel” and calls on the U.S. to adopt as its own policy the Arab Peace Initiative.

“Pushing for the Abrahamic Accords without resolving the Palestinian issue is of no value, and even if signed by some Arab Governments, it has not led to real peace between the Israelis and other neighboring Arab countries’ populations, seeing their Palestinian brethren suffering under the occupation for 58 years,” the resolution states.

On Thursday, a group of Jewish Georgia politicos gathered for a first-of-its-kind-event at the Georgia statehouse: the “Sine Die Seder.”

Organized by state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Democrat and the only Jewish member of the Georgia General Assembly, the event brought together around 30 Jewish staffers, journalists, lobbyists, interns, a former attorney general and more to celebrate Passover on the final night of the legislative session, known as sine die. 

Panitch said that she had asked the House majority leader to cancel the House session on Wednesday, the first night of Passover — and he obliged — but the House was still scheduled to be in session for the second night.

“And so I said, ‘Well, we’re going to be at the Capitol on the second night. Why don’t we have a Seder for probably the 10 of us in the building that are Jewish,’” Panitch told Jewish Insider, referring to herself and a handful of interns, staff and reporters, during the hour-long dinner break during the session.

Interest in the event ballooned, with the group ultimately growing to around 30, with non-Jewish lawmakers and family members of other attendees joining the event. Panitch’s husband led the Seder from their family Haggadah.

“It was very warm … the room was full. It was really special,” Panitch said. “I was really happy the way it turned out — it exceeded my expectations. Everybody participated. People sang.”

Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, joined the proceedings for around 20 minutes and read the “wise son” passage from the Haggadah — a reward, Panitch joked, for bringing up and passing a bill she authored earlier in the day.

Bryan Markowitz, the executive director of the Georgia Ophthalmologic Association, said he’s had to rush home in the past from Georgia statehouse sessions for Seders, “so it was really nice to have it right there and have everybody. Anybody who didn’t know about Passover was able to learn more about it through this experience. And all of us that were there anyway got to enjoy a Seder together, which I thought was really special.”

He said that having Burns in attendance, reading the Haggadah and wearing a yarmulke, was “really very, very powerful to me.”

The highlight of the night, Panitch and Markowitz said, was a custom rendition of the song “Dayenu” commemorating the last day of the House session, “Sine Die-yenu,” written specially for the event by a rabbi from the Atlanta suburbs.

“It was very creatively done and very witty and funny,” Markowitz said.

Greg Bluestein, a longtime political reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, called the event, in a column, “one of the more meaningful seders I’ve ever participated in, an important reminder that some traditions endure even in the Capitol’s most frantic hours.”

The group took in a meal of matzo ball soup, brisket, chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables over a table decorated with blue tablecloths along both sides to resemble the parted Red Sea — plus plastic frogs scattered along the length of the table to represent one of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians in the Passover story.

Markowitz and his son, who is interning for a local public affairs firm, both jumped at the opportunity to join the “exciting” Seder when they heard about it. His wife and daughter, he said, “were both sort of jealous, and wanted to come and be part of this experience,” so they ultimately turned it into a full-family affair.

“It was fantastic, and the food was great. The company was great. It was really great to share a special day at the Capitol,” Markowitz told JI. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing on Passover than singing and saying prayers and telling the story of Exodus with the members of the legislature at the Capitol.”

Prominent Jewish figures and senior Trump administration officials gathered at the White House on Monday afternoon for an event hosted by President Donald Trump commemorating the Passover holiday.

Administration officials in attendance at the event, which was closed to the press and took place in the Indian Treaty Room, included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick; White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf; James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs; Jacob Reses, chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin; Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison; and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Marks delivered comments to the crowd remarking on the holiday and the Trump administration’s record of support for Israel, according to an attendee. 

Others spotted at the event were Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association; Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jeff Miller, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; Jonathan Burkan, United States Holocaust Memorial Council member; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); Paul Packer, the former chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, member of the Religious Liberty Commission and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jerry Wartski, a Holocaust survivor, and freed Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander were also in attendance. 

Prior to the official reception, Trump invited about 20 guests to join him in the Oval Office. During the brief gathering, the president called Jared Kushner, an informal advisor to the White House and his son-in-law, and his daughter Ivanka. Kushner, who is Jewish, and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism, spoke to attendees over speakerphone, one guest told Jewish Insider. 

President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to escalate the war in Iran on Monday if Iranian leaders do not agree to a broad ceasefire deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday evening deadline, threatening that the U.S. would target every bridge and power plant still standing in the country.

Trump took a hawkish posture while speaking to reporters at the White House alongside senior U.S. defense officials about the ongoing war and diplomatic efforts to bring it to a close, warning that the U.S. has a plan to take out Iran’s entire transportation and energy infrastructure within “four hours” if Iran did not make a deal. 

“I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think, in good faith. We’re going to find out. … After [8 p.m. ET on Tuesday], they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages,” Trump said, referring to the deadline he set for Iran to agree to his terms, which has now been postponed three times.

The president said he extended the deadline from Monday to Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET because he “thought it was inappropriate” to demand a response “the day after Easter.” The comment came hours after telling reporters at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll that the Tuesday deadline was final and unlikely to have any additional extensions. 

“The entire country can be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said from the briefing room. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, [where] every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it’ll happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.” 

“We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. If that’s the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive things, and bridges,” he continued. “So do I want to do that? No. Do I want to destroy their infrastructure? No. It will take them 100 years to rebuild. Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country and it would never be as good as it was. The only way they’re going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who took part in the press conference alongside Trump, told reporters on Monday that, “per the president’s direction, today will be the largest volume which strikes since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today, and then Iran has a choice. Choose wisely, because this president does not play around.”

Trump repeatedly reiterated his commitment to ensuring that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon — after saying the country’s nuclear program was “obliterated” last June — and said that any agreement between Iran and the U.S. would need to adhere to his terms, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be [that] we want free traffic of oil and everything,” the president said.

“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said of Iran, arguing that his actions were an insurance policy for the U.S. “if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen, because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective and afraid of Iran.”

The president described the Iranians as “very good bulls*** artists, that’s why for 47 years they’ve been bulls***ing other presidents,” while defending his decision to take military action against the regime.

“I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They’re at the weakest point they’ve ever been,” Trump said, despite Iran’s continued missile strikes across the Gulf and in Israel. “In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiations is that they can’t communicate. … They have no method of communication. So we’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth.”

This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Amid reports that Iran has rejected the U.S.’ ceasefire framework, President Donald Trump told reporters Tehran has made its own “significant” proposal, though it is “not good enough.”

Asked if he may push the deadline again for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face increased U.S. military action — as he has already done three times — Trump said, “Highly unlikely. They’ve had plenty of time.”

Trump also claimed the U.S. had “sent guns, lot of guns” into Iran. “They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs. You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them, because they said, ‘What a beautiful gun. I think I’ll keep it,’” he said…

At a press conference this afternoon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today would mark “the largest volume of strikes since Day 1” of the Iran war, with more to come tomorrow.

Trump doubled down on his threats, warning that all of Iran “can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” If Tehran does not acquiesce by his 8 p.m. ET deadline tomorrow, Trump said, “they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages.” 

The president also floated the possibility of charging U.S. tolls to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz once it is reopened and potentially seizing Iran’s oil. Trump and defense officials further detailed the harrowing rescue of a fighter jet pilot, who reportedly treated his own wounds while scaling mountainous terrain to evade capture after being downed over Iran…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke yesterday with Trump, who thanked him for Israel’s assistance in rescuing the pilot…

Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned over his opposition to the Iran war, shared a post on social media on Saturday spreading false claims from Iranian state-linked media and Drop Site News that the U.S. was attempting to kill the servicemember whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran prior to him being rescued, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

The initial statement from Drop Site, a far-left news outlet sympathetic to Hamas and totalitarian regimes, cited a report by Tasnim News, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claiming that the U.S. had “lost hope” of recovering the airman and was instead “attempting to kill him”…

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), who previously served in the Air Force, predicted that the U.S. will deploy ground troops into Iran: “I just don’t see any other way,” he said on Fox News. “I personally think it’s going to be boots — at least special ops, American special operators — on the ground, with allies in the region and air cover,” he said…

The U.S.-led Board of Peace is pressing Hamas to finalize a Gaza demilitarization agreement by the end of the week, The New York Times reports, which would require the terror group to give up its weapons and maps of its tunnel network in the enclave. Negotiators from both sides are expected to meet in Cairo, Egypt, tomorrow…

Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow announced she raised more than $3 million in the first quarter of 2026 in her bid for U.S. Senate. “There was not a dime of corporate PAC donations, not a dime of AIPAC donations,” she said in a video. The pro-Israel group was the only organization she named.

While McMorrow’s opponents have not yet publicized their latest fundraising figures, her haul surpassed those of last quarter, when Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) led the pack with $2.1 million raised in the final quarter of 2025…

The Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s top super PAC, revealed its $350 million plan to retain control of the upper chamber, focusing on defending incumbents in Ohio, North Carolina, Maine, Iowa and Alaska and seeking to flip seats in Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire. 

The funds will largely be used for ad campaigns, with the most money being spent to defend Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), who must win his first Senate election for the remainder of his term against the likely Democratic nominee, former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received a grand welcome upon touching down in Damascus yesterday for his first meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa. The two leaders “explored avenues for strengthening economic cooperation and the exchange of expertise,” al-Sharaa said…

Sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE have signed equity commitments to the tune of $24 billion to back Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, The Wall Street Journal 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 preview of tomorrow’s special election runoff in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, where Republican military veteran and Israel supporter Clay Fuller is expected to win the ruby-red seat of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will hold another press briefing on the Iran war tomorrow morning.

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will host rallies tomorrow at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan with guests including Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) and antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, a move which has drawn condemnation from some Democrats and sparked a broader debate about the mainstreaming of Piker within the party.

The Democratic National Committee will begin its five-day meeting in New Orleans tomorrow, where its resolutions committee will consider several resolutions condemning AIPAC and Israel, including calls for conditions on or a suspension of U.S. military aid to the Jewish state.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will meet with Trump and administration officials in Washington on Wednesday, as the president continues to slam the organization for its refusal to engage in the Iran war.

In observance of Passover, we’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday, April 13. Chag Pesach Sameach!

Stories You May Have Missed

ALTERED LIVES

They survived the Temple Israel attack. They can’t escape what followed

The foiled attack at the Michigan synagogue is being called a miracle — but those who were inside now face the lasting impact of trauma and a search for safety

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O CANADA

As antisemitic attacks mount, Canadian Jews ask whether they still belong

After a series of targeted attacks in Toronto and beyond, Jewish leaders are raising the alarms on Canada’s failure to properly protect its Jews amid ‘systemic’ antisemitism

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With Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy markets, other countries in the region may begin to pursue alternative routes to transport energy and other goods, but they are far from ready to be put into use, experts told Jewish Insider this week. 

One of the highest-profile routes is the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), proposed by the Biden administration in September 2023 as a route for trade, energy and more; it would go from India, through Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Israel, then across the Mediterranean to Europe through Greece.

While Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz and obstruct oil shipping for decades, the Islamic Republic was not the main reason for considering another route of transportation — it was initially conceived as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.  

But now that the Iranian threat has been realized, IMEC and other alternative routes to ship oil and gas from the Gulf are back in focus.

Gabriel Mitchell, an expert on energy security and a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told JI that “the threat and challenge posed with the Strait of Hormuz has raised questions about East-West shipping, traffic and global energy trade to the maximum.”

”If you look at it from the perspective of India on one end, Europe on the other and anywhere in between, they are thinking they need to create as much redundancy as possible for commercial shipping for their own economic security,” Mitchell said. “It doesn’t make a difference whether you’re Emirati or Qatari or just an international shipping company with a base of operations in [the UAE’s Port of] Fuajirah, you’re asking the same questions.” 

Mitchell said the idea of redundant shipping routes initially came from a desire to lower costs and increase speed of delivery, and grew more popular due to challenges with the Suez Canal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, in light of Iran’s obstruction of the Strait of Hormuz, “the argument in favor of IMEC [and] creation of redundancy has increased significantly.” 

Increased regional connectivity can “take away Iran’s lever of closing the Strait of Hormuz,” Joseph Rozen, a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and the former director for Asia-Pacific in Israel’s National Security Council, told JI. (The writer is a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute.)

Rozen said that “IMEC is a buzzword; the focus needs to be on inter-regional connectivity,” and noted that the Trump administration may be hesitant to adopt a Biden-era initiative, though it seemingly supports increasing connectivity more broadly through the Board of Peace. 

Regional connectivity can increase stability and growth, Rozen said, and more countries can be brought in than those initially on board, such as Oman, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and even Gaza.

“The Iran war increased American involvement and its push for connectivity initiatives,” Rozen said. “Before the war [President Donald] Trump expressed interest, but now, the U.S. is more invested, and that encourages countries in the region to invest in regional connectivity if they know there’s an American security umbrella … over their investments and development.”

Rozen argued that existing infrastructure should be improved in the short term. The Saudi and Emirati pipelines combined can only transfer about 8.5 million barrels’ worth of oil per day, 42% of what passed through the Strait of Hormuz each day before the current war with Iran, he said. Another short-term move Rozen proposed is to continue to grant countries waivers to buy Russian gas, though this effort has seen resistance from members of Congress.

Mitchell said that IMEC faced a lot of skepticism when it was proposed, and none of its challenges have been resolved.

The commercial viability of alternative pipelines and routes is in question, Mitchell said: “Who is going to pay? Who is going to secure it? Which available ports will be able to manage that intake?”

Companies may prefer to try to find quick fixes rather than make multibillion-dollar investments that take a decade or more to bring returns, Mitchell argued, and the private sector and states will have to work together to make them viable. “I believe that will tip the scales in favor of these kinds of projects, but which end up getting green lit is yet to be determined.”

Some of the geopolitical challenges have grown more difficult since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, weeks after IMEC was announced. In addition, Mitchell pointed out that Turkey has obstructed joint energy projects between Israel, Greece and Cyprus in the past decade, demanding to be involved, and would likely do the same with IMEC.

”It’s hard to get everyone involved in one project … It’s hard to say how we are going to set aside our differences for these sets of initiatives … [and] what combination of carrots and sticks will convince people to pursue diversification. … I think in the end the answer will be yes, but it will take time to get there,” Mitchell said.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel earlier this year, IMEC was part of the public conversation, but diplomats from both countries told JI on condition of anonymity that Saudi Arabia was hesitant to proceed because of Israel’s involvement — even though both countries were part of the plan from its inception.

Rozen said that Riyadh and Jerusalem can be part of the same project as long as the focus is on practical steps that serve the Saudis’ interests and not summits and bombastic statements that would “do more harm than good.”

”I understand their interest to maintain a certain kind of rhetoric, but there are other interests,” he said. “The more we advance through channels that are not political and are lower profile … I think the Saudis would be willing to do it. It can happen at any level of IMEC or other connectivity plans, in energy, trade and digital services. Cooperation led by the business sector would not carry the same political baggage … and under the current political circumstances it may be better for it not to be government-led.”

Mitchell also said that disputes between Saudi Arabia and the UAE that surfaced late last year could get in the way of developing IMEC, though in “a situation like now, when everyone is economically bleeding, there should be room for creative solutions.”

Israeli officials have made many positive statements about IMEC and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar took part in a summit last year with his counterparts from involved countries, but no progress has been made on the ground.

Rozen said that Israel will likely wait to develop the necessary infrastructure “as long as there is no commitment from Arab States, such as Jordan, to invest on their side.” However, he added that, in the interim, Israel can “focus on the technological aspects” of regional connectivity at a lower cost.

Mitchell said the big challenge for Israel is that other countries will be competing to be involved in connectivity projects. Egypt, he said, has been pushing to be the gateway to the Mediterranean, with support from France.

”The argument in Israel’s favor is the security-related coordination [with Arab states] that is happening informally in a lot of ways. We need to concretize that,” he said. “One would assume that Israeli companies would have the opportunity to present their offerings for cybersecurity infrastructure.”

”The real thorn in Israel’s side since Oct. 7 is the diplomatic element. Can Israel manifest any kind of diplomatic initiative or momentum to patch together meaningful cooperation?” Mitchell questioned. “It seems that as of right now, nobody is willing to meet in the middle, which is challenging if you’re Israel, but it’s also challenging for the U.S., which is trying to work with everybody in parallel and has struggled to bring them around the table [together].” 

Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned over his opposition to the Iran war, shared a post on social media spreading false claims from Iranian state-linked media and Drop Site News that the U.S. was attempting to kill the servicemember whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran over the weekend prior to him being rescued. 

The initial statement on Saturday from Drop Site, a far-left news outlet sympathetic to Hamas and totalitarian regimes, cited a report by Tasnim News, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claiming that the U.S. had “lost hope” of recovering an airman whose jet was downed over Iran on Friday and was instead “attempting to kill him.” 

The post was then amplified by Kent with the message: “Praying for the rescue of our downed pilot & the safe return of our Special Operators going in to get him back. [U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen and Combat Search and Rescue] Air crews are top notch.” 

The Iranian-state media claim reposted by Kent came a day before President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the lost crew member had been rescued following what he hailed as a “daring” operation by U.S. forces to retrieve him — contradicting the claim that Washington had been attempting to bomb and kill the missing servicemember. 

In his post on Truth Social, Trump said that the servicemember’s location was being monitored “24 hours a day,” adding that the U.S. was “diligently planning for his rescue.”

Kent initially resigned from his post in March over the war in Iran, claiming that Tehran posed “no imminent threat to our nation” and accusing the U.S. of starting the war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the state of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran as President Donald Trump issues a new deadline for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and talk to Canadian Jewish leaders about rising antisemitism — and government inaction — that is prompting some Canadian Jews to consider relocating. We report on the White House’s  requested budget cuts for FEMA and Justice Department programs, and talk to New Jersey Democratic congressional candidate Tina Shah, who is centering her support for Israel as she mounts a bid to take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Harmeet Dhillon, Omer Horev and Rabbi David Wolpe.

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

• President Donald Trump will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. ET from the White House alongside senior military officials to discuss the weekend operation to rescue a U.S. servicemember whose plane was shot down in Iran. Yesterday, Trump warned that Iran’s power plants and bridges would be targeted on Tuesday over Iran’s continued blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. More below.
• Shortly after the press conference, Trump will deliver a Passover greeting toJewish leaders at the White House.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

As the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran extends into its sixth week, the next 36 hours may be some of the most pivotal, offering clarity as to whether an end is in sight — or whether an escalation is imminent.

On the table now, according to Axios, is a proposed two-phased ceasefire deal, lasting 45 days, that would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and give negotiators two to three weeks to reach a broader agreement to end the war. As a signal that the U.S. is open to the agreement, President Donald Trump extended by 24 hours the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait, setting a new deadline of Tuesday night ET.

The core issues remain: Tehran’s closure of the key waterway, and the fate of the country’s enriched uranium. But a deal between Washington and Tehran would include broader issues, including potential sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran’s promise that it will not pursue nuclear weapons. Iran has signaled that it will not reopen the Strait for a temporary ceasefire and is seeking a more permanent resolution.

The president paired threats with optimism, leaning into the current debate with a conflicting mix of tough talk — warning yesterday that strikes targeting Iran’s power plants and bridges would take place on Tuesday in the absence of a deal — and hopes of an 11th-hour diplomatic breakthrough. 

A diplomatic agreement would see a winding down of the war that would likely allow Iran to retain some of its ballistic missile capabilities — a compromise that is unlikely to sit well in Israel, which continues to face fire from Iranian forces. 

On the other hand, Trump’s threatened destruction of key Iranian infrastructure could further deteriorate conditions in the Islamic Republic, where a regime-imposed internet blackout has ensured minimal on-the-ground reporting on weeks of war. And as always, the president has one eye on the markets, which will open today after the holiday weekend.

The U.S. and Israel have already made serious strategic strides by killing dozens of members of Iran’s senior leadership and severely crippling Tehran’s nuclear program. The question now is whether that will be enough for Trump to declare victory in accordance with the rough timeline he’s given for U.S. operations in Iran — or whether the U.S. will double down on its military operations.

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

oy, canada

As antisemitic attacks mount, Canadian Jews ask whether they still belong

As Canadian Jewish families began celebrating the holiday of Passover, many found the ancient narrative colliding with a modern reality of rising fear at home amid a wave of antisemitic attacks, highlighting what Jewish leaders describe as “systemic” Jew-hatred in Canada. And it is even leading some Jewish Canadians to consider their own kind of exodus from their country, with one communal leader telling Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen that “the promise” that Jews could practice their faith openly in the country “has been broken.”

‘Systemic failure’: Canada has experienced some of the most severe manifestations of the global surge in antisemitism since Oct. 7. — with higher rates of antisemitic incidents than other countries but lower conviction rates. “There has been a systemic failure across jurisdictions to face antisemitism,” said Richard Marceau, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and general counsel at CIJA, an agency of the Jewish Federations of Canada. Marceau asserted that Canadian society has “a complete misunderstanding” of what antisemitism is, whether it stems from “the far left, far right [or] Islamic circles.”

Read the full story here.

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budget talk

White House requests budget cuts for FEMA, DOJ programs, boosts defense spending

The Trump administration’s 2027 top-line budget request to Congress calls for significant funding increases for the Department of Defense, while pushing for cuts to certain programs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Justice, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Ups and downs: The request urges cuts of $1.3 billion to non-disaster grant programs at FEMA, a category which includes the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which has been critical to protecting Jewish community institutions and for which both lawmakers and Jewish community groups have sought increased funding, without specifying specific impacts on NSGP. The budget document specifically lambasts FEMA’s “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention” program, which has support from some groups in the Jewish community, as having been “weaponized to target Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.” At the DOJ, the administration again aims to eliminate the Community Relations Service, which has received support from some Jewish community groups in the past.

Read the full story here.

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debate over hate

Analilia Mejia on defensive over Israel record in NJ-11 debate with Republican Joe Hathaway

Joe Hathaway, the Republican nominee in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, repeatedly accused Democratic nominee Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer, of espousing antisemitism and taking stances that would make the district’s sizable Jewish community unsafe, during their sole debate earlier this week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: Hathaway, in his opening statement, said that Mejia would “demonize thousands of members of our Jewish community.” The Randolph, N.J., city councilman has leaned into outreach to Jewish voters during the campaign. Though she had described the war in Gaza as a genocide less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Mejia stopped short of using that word during the debate. Instead, she said that “many individuals are feeling conflicted about what we are seeing in Gaza,” while accusing Israel and its prime minister of having committed war crimes. 

Read the full story here.

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shah’s strategy

Tina Shah pitches staunch Israel support in bid to flip NJ-07

Tina Shah is hoping she might have the cure to Democrats’ struggles in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District. Shah, an emergency room physician and former government official, is running in the Democratic primary to face off against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), who has proven resilient against repeated Democratic challenges in the purple district, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Standing together: Shah noted in a recent interview with JI that the district is home to a substantial Jewish community, and said that she’s had many conversations with community members about the situation in the Middle East and the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, conversations she said have fostered her support for continued, unconditional aid for the Jewish state. “Where I am right now is unequivocally that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East,” Shah said. “They had a right to defend themselves then, [and] they continue to. I will be the strongest ally to make sure that we continue to build this relationship and support Israel with aid.”

Read the full story here.

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shifting stance

Ruben Gallego says he now opposes funding for offensive weapons for Israel, backs Iron Dome

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) said Sunday he now opposes U.S. aid for offensive weaponry for Israel but continued to defend U.S. support for defensive systems like Iron Dome, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The new stance from Gallego, who positioned himself as a pro-Israel moderate during his 2024 Senate campaign, highlights the changing currents within the Democratic Party. Gallego also acknowledged in an interview with NBC News that he’s considering a 2028 presidential run.

What he said: Gallego said that he would not support providing Israel with funding for offensive weapons due to disagreements with the country’s military operations in Iran and Lebanon. Gallego, a military veteran, has been among the Senate’s most strident opponents of the war in Iran. But he said he would continue to support aid for missile-defense systems. “Like any other ally in this in this world, I can’t imagine stopping defensive weapons going to any of our friends, because in that situation, if they’re raining down bombs, you’re hitting people that are, especially in Israel, they’re Arabs, Christians, Jews, people that are pro-war, against war. It’s indiscriminatory.”

Read the full story here.

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declined defensive aid

Ro Khanna says he’ll reject Iron Dome funding, joining AOC

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said on Wednesday that he would reject further funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system, echoing a position taken days earlier by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), under pressure from some members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Footing the bill: “The Iron Dom[e]is important & saves lives. Israel should be able to buy it on their own with a $45 defense billion budget,” Khanna said in a post on X, closely following the stance taken by Ocasio-Cortez. “Israel is a first world country, and it can pay for the defensive systems it needs. We should not be subsidizing them, especially given their egregious violations of human rights law. Even Netanyahu has recognized the inevitability of Israel moving away from US aid.”

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Well-Oiled Machine: The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip looks at the Iran war’s impact on the U.S. economy. “[President Donald Trump’s] strategic motives aren’t that different: to deny a hostile power the means to dominate the region, and to protect Israel. Where Trump differs is in the economics. Past presidents believed that the free flow of oil was one of those global public goods that the U.S. was uniquely equipped, even obliged, to safeguard. … Trump’s revamping of the U.S. role in world security and trade now extends to oil. No longer does the U.S. see itself as the guarantor of international stability and norms, but rather as a self-interested actor using control of oil to enhance its own power.” [WSJ]

The Piker Problem: In MS Now, Michael Cohen cautions that far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who has a history of making antisemitic and anti-American comments, is a “political distraction and potential liability” to Democrats as they seek to win back the Senate and House in the midterms. “Indeed, if the paragon of liberal politics — and the person who can attract young voters — is a guy who regularly makes antisemitic statements, blames America for 9/11 and can’t even endorse a Democratic presidential standard-bearer, perhaps the problem is not Piker’s critics, but rather those who feel they must defend him.” [MSNOW] 

Man, Oh Man: In The Conversation, Miriam Eve Mora, managing director of the University of Michigan’s Raoul Wallenberg Institute, does a deep dive into the prevalence of antisemitism in the “manosphere” movement. “Antisemitic rhetoric often portrayed Jewish men as feminine or fragile, and inherently different. Those beliefs extended into the most severe antisemitic tropes and beliefs. … Today’s manosphere not only builds on this legacy but also presents something new. Its embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theories allows men who see themselves as victims to explain multiple grievances at once without confronting their own shortcomings.” [TheConversation]

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump is mulling promoting Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to a more senior role following the ouster of Attorney General Pam Bondi last week…

Trump is also considering replacing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard over her defense of Joe Kent, who resigned last month as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center…

Immigration authorities in Los Angeles arrested the nieces of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the women’s legal statuses were revoked and they would be deported to Iran…

The U.S. quietly expelled Iran’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. in December, one of several below-the-radar expulsions of diplomats from the Islamic Republic since the fall…

Argentina declared Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Buenos Aires and the most senior Iranian diplomat in the South American country, persona non grata, giving him 48 hours to leave the country… 

The New York Times looks at the strategic importance of the string of islands under Iranian control in and around the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump considers whether or not to seize some of the islands…

Israeli rescue services said the bodies of four people — two octogenarians, a man in his 40s and a woman in her mid-30s — were recovered from the site of an Iranian missile strike in Haifa on Sunday…

A drone factory in Petah Tikva, Israel, was destroyed in an Iranian drone strike over the weekend…

Politico reports on changes made quietly by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum during the first year of Trump’s second term, including the removal of online resources about racism in the U.S. and the renaming of a workshop on the “Fragility of Democracy and the Rise of the Nazis” to “Before the Holocaust: German Society and the Nazi Rise to Power”…

NPR’s public editor addressed concerns that the broadcaster’s coverage of last month’s Michigan synagogue attack gave unfair weight to the Lebanon-based relatives of the synagogue attacker, finding that “voices from Temple Israel are absent. I couldn’t find any stories that quote rabbis, congregation members or the families of the children who had to flee the building … NPR or Michigan Public Radio pulled away from the story at Temple Israel too soon”…

Immigration officials detained Salah Sarsour, the head of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, claiming that the Palestinian man, who moved to the U.S. in 1993, lied on his green card application; Sarsour had been convicted by an Israeli court for throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of IDF soldiers… 

Trump made an appearance at the Passover program at the Trump National Doral Miami…

Citadel’s Ken Griffin, Pura Vida Miami CEO Omer Horev and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were in attendance at Inter Miami CF’s Nu Stadium debut in South Florida…

A judge in New York ruled that the holding company owned by David Nahmad must restitute an Amedeo Modigliani painting to the descendants of a French Jewish antiques dealer who owned the work before it was confiscated by the Nazis during World War II…

Pepsi announced it will withdraw its sponsorship of this summer’s Wireless Festival as organizers face backlash over the decision to tap Kanye West to headline the festival’s three nights…

Authorities in London arrested four men in connection with the arson attack last month that destroyed several Hatzola ambulances in the heavily Jewish suburb of Golders Green; three of the arrests were made last week, while a fourth suspect was arrested while attending a court hearing for the first three…

The International Criminal Court is moving forward with disciplinary proceedings against the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who is facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment; the first complaints about Khan’s behavior toward subordinates came weeks before he announced his intent to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant…

European Parliament Member Rima Hassan, a member of the far-left France Unbowed party, is facing charges in Paris that she glorified terrorism on social media after sharing a post about Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese national who took part in a 1972  terror attack at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in which 26 people, mostly Christian pilgrims, were killed…

Authorities in the Netherlands are investigating a small explosion outside a pro-Israel center run by a group called Christians for Israel in the city of Nijkerk…

The Wall Street Journal looks at Saudi Arabia’s efforts to scale down its ambitious Vision 2030 project amid budget shortfalls and ongoing political uncertainty in the region…

Former Washington Post Middle East editor Erin Cunningham was named the news director for the Associated Press’ Jerusalem bureau…

Rabbi David Wolpe is joining The Dispatch as a contributing writer…

Israeli writer and poet Tzruya ‘Suki’ Lahav, who briefly played violin with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, died at 74…

Pic of the Day

People participated in a communal Passover Seder on the first night of the holiday in an underground parking lot in Tel Aviv, Israel, that since the start of the war with Iran has served as a community bomb shelter.

Birthdays

Founder and chairman of Cognex Corporation, a provider of machine vision systems, he is a major donor to Technion, Robert J. Shillman turns 80…

Educator often considered the founder of the modern small schools movement, she was a winner of a MacArthur genius fellowship in 1987, Deborah Meier turns 95… Holocaust survivor, she moved to Israel in 1978, visual artist, textile designer and art teacher, Helen Berman turns 90… Professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Mark Mordecai Green turns 89… Former head of MTV Documentary Films, she has won 32 individual Primetime Emmy Awards, Sheila Nevins turns 87… Academy Award-winning director of many famous films, Barry Levinson turns 84… Santa Monica, Calif.-based poet, critic and teacher, she earned her Ph.D. studying Jewish American literature, Nancy Shiffrin turns 82… Founder and CEO of Emmis Communications, he was the owner of the Seattle Mariners until 1992, Jeff Smulyan turns 79… Political activist, artist and author, she is best known for her speeches at the Republican National Conventions in 1992 and 1996, Mary Fisher turns 78… Former chair of the Federal Election Commission during the Obama administration, she is a lecturer at UC Berkeley Law School, Ann Ravel turns 77… Los Angeles-based playwright, performer and teacher of autobiographical storytelling, Stacie Chaiken turns 72… Senior advisor of the Nellis Corporation and co-chair of the Washington metropolitan area real estate division of AIPAC, Randall J. Levitt turns 72… Movie director, producer, writer and editor, winner of two Academy Awards for best documentary feature, Rob Epstein turns 71… Scholar of piyyut (ancient and medieval Hebrew poetry), head of the Fleischer Institute for the Study of Hebrew Poetry, Shulamit Elizur turns 71… Philanthropist Jeanie Schottenstein… Professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Michael J. Gerhardt turns 70… Senior political analyst for CNN and a former senior editor at The Atlantic, Ronald J. Brownstein turns 68… Director, screenwriter and producer of television comedies, Steven Levitan turns 64… Former teacher for 23 years at Congregation Tikvat Jacob in Manhattan Beach, Calif., Deborah Granow… Chair and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, he was previously the U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Hammerman Rivkin turns 64… Reporter for The New York Times covering the Justice Department, Glenn Thrush turns 59… Screenwriter, producer, actor, director, best known for creating the HBO television series “Entourage,” Douglas Reed “Doug” Ellin turns 58… Serial entrepreneur, he has built, operated and sold over $3.3 billion of internet media companies, Richard Rosenblatt turns 57… Israel’s consul general in New York from 2007-2010, now CEO of Israeli private equity fund Amelia Investments, Asaf Shariv turns 54… Founder and chief investment officer of Hong Kong-based Oasis Management Company, he serves on the board of the Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, Seth Hillel Fischer… VP of strategic philanthropy and major gifts at the American Jewish Committee, Jay Haberman turns 52… Actor and filmmaker, he is best known for his role on the television series “Scrubs,” Zachary Israel “Zach” Braff turns 51… Teacher of classical mandolin at Bard College, Joseph Brent turns 50… Resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute since 2019, he is the founding editor of National Affairs, Yuval Levin turns 49… Co-founder and executive editor of Modern Loss and story editor for Chalkbeat, Gabrielle Birkner… Member of the Knesset for Likud since 2019, now serving as the minister of communications, Shlomo Karhi turns 44… Owner-chef of Ramen Hood in Los Angeles, he was the winner of the second season of “Top Chef,” Ilan Hall turns 44… Executive director of the Jack Miller Family Foundation, Jacob Millner… Head coach of the New York Institute of Technology Division II NCAA men’s basketball team, Evan Conti turns 33… Son of Campbell Brown and Dan Senor, Asher Liam Senor turns 17…