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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel will abide by a request from the Trump administration to pause its strikes on Iran, two Israeli sources told CNN, though Jerusalem plans to continue its operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

The halt comes after Iran announced earlier Monday that it would suspend its military operations against Israel, after having launched a number of missile barrages at the Jewish state since Sunday evening. However, Tehran has threatened to resume strikes should Israel continue its campaign in Lebanon, which the IDF did on Monday after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday that “any attack on [northern Israel] will lead to a strike on Dahiyeh,” referring to the Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold that the IDF struck on Sunday in response to Hezbollah attacks targeting northern Israel earlier in the day. “We completely reject Iran’s threat,” Katz added. “Any Iranian attempt to link Lebanon and Iran and attack Israel will be met with great force, as happened yesterday.”

Israel had fired on Iranian strategic air defense systems and an Iranian petrochemical plant earlier on Monday after Tehran launched waves of ballistic missiles at northern and central Israel, the first such attacks since the U.S. and Iran reached a ceasefire in early April. Iran said it was retaliating for IDF strikes in Dahiyeh, which came after Hezbollah fired on northern Israeli towns. 

After Israel’s strikes on Iran, the Houthis, an Iran-backed proxy group in Yemen, launched a ballistic missile at Israel and declared a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea.

The exchange marked the most significant military hostilities between the two sides in months and prompted immediate diplomatic intervention from President Donald Trump, who called on both sides on Monday to “stop shooting.” 

He had also reportedly urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call to hold off on retaliatory strikes against Iran, though Israel fired on Iran afterwards. Trump also said that “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting,’” in a post on Truth Social early Monday morning.

Although a U.S. official initially told CNN that American forces played no role in intercepting the Iranian missiles, officials later confirmed that Washington did fire interceptors at the incoming projectiles. The success of those intercept attempts remains unclear. The U.S. military stated it did not conduct any joint strikes in Iran alongside Israel.

Trump also said he was “not happy” about the Israeli strikes in Beirut on Sunday, after he attempted to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah last week, which the terror group quickly rejected. 

Netanyahu will reportedly convene a full Security Cabinet meeting Monday evening local time. 

The diplomatic scramble unfolds as the U.S. and Iran attempt to maintain a fragile truce while negotiators seek to hammer out a comprehensive end to the conflict. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that his nation has “abandoned neither the battlefield nor the negotiating table.”

“Our priority is national security and the peace of our people. We will firmly defend the rights of the nation and will not back down in the face of any threat,” Pezeshkian wrote on X on Monday, describing diplomacy and defense as the “two wings of national power.”

This story was updated on June 8 to reflect an updated CNN report that U.S. forces did attempt to assist Israel in intercepting Iranian missiles.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Trump administration have launched formal talks on a “new security cooperation framework” to replace the current U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding on military aid upon its expiration in 2028, the ministry said in a statement on Friday. 

The Israeli team will be led by Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, while the U.S. team will be led by State Department counselor Daniel Holler and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

The two sides held a formal inaugural meeting this week and have further discussions planned in both countries in the coming weeks, the ministry said, without specifying a timeline for when the talks might conclude. 

The new agreement, according to the statement, is designed to “strengthen the IDF’s qualitative military edge through expanded joint investment in research, development, and co-production” as well as “deepen the U.S.-Israel partnership demonstrated during [the Iran war].” 

The framework will also aim to “gradually transition from aid to a completely reciprocal relationship,” a goal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has championed in recent months. 

Earlier this week, Netanyahu told CNBC’s Sara Eisen that he wants to start winding down U.S. aid to Israel “in the last two years of the Trump administration,” suggesting he may also be looking to alter the terms of the current MOU, which guarantees Israel $3.8 billion annually in military aid through FY 2028.

As the Trump administration prepares to submit a proposed civil nuclear pact with Saudi Arabia to Congress, U.S. lawmakers are raising concerns about the potential agreement while nonproliferation experts and former Trump administration officials are sounding the alarm, warning that the pact abandons traditional safeguards and could ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

Last month, the Trump administration proposed the pact to assist Saudi Arabia with its development of civilian nuclear power, following indications last year that it would pursue such an agreement to strengthen bilateral diplomatic ties. Experts say the White House is looking to construct and operate a uranium enrichment plant within Saudi Arabia, safeguarding the facility through a bilateral framework.

The pact is currently undergoing final review before President Donald Trump can formally submit it to Congress. Once the president signs the agreement and transmits it to Capitol Hill, both chambers will have 90 days to pass resolutions of disapproval to block the deal. Otherwise, the pact will automatically go into effect, permitting the U.S. to share civilian nuclear power technology with the kingdom.

Experts told Jewish Insider that the agreement in its current form would not require Riyadh to adhere to the nonproliferation “gold standard” – a commitment to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing. Other regional partners, such as the United Arab Emirates, accepted this stringent safeguard in past U.S. deals specifically to prevent military or illicit nuclear activity. 

The proposed pact would also exempt Riyadh from accepting the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) “additional protocol.” This accord helps rule out clandestine military activities by granting international inspectors the authority to conduct sudden, unannounced visits to nuclear facilities. While the U.S. maintains numerous nuclear cooperation agreements globally, it rarely establishes them with nations that reject these baseline oversight protocols.

Democrats across the ideological spectrum have previously indicated concern over the potential civil nuclear pact, reflecting a historical trend in which Congress has typically supported a stringent nonproliferation policy toward Saudi Arabia that includes robust safeguards.

In May, a dozen Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking that the administration follow strict U.N.-backed protocol, including IAEA inspection. However, in a letter from the State Department to Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), the administration only indicated that the agreement would require the two sides to commit to a “bilateral safeguards agreement,” and did not make a mention of the “gold standard,” according to Reuters. 

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) told JI he was concerned about the administration pushing forward the agreement without safeguards, saying that “there’s only one reason not to have non-militarization safeguards and that’s militarization.”

“The idea that allowing Saudi Arabia to move toward a nuclear weapon defies history,” Sherman said. “A Saudi nuclear weapon leads to worldwide proliferation. Egypt and Turkey would feel that they need to match that, and then where’s Argentina and Brazil going to be?”

Sherman emphasized that Saudi Arabia should follow an agreement that mimics a 2009 nuclear agreement between the U.S. and UAE, in which the vital safeguard standard was followed.

“The UAE signed the good agreement. Why the hell can’t the Saudis sign the same agreement?” he said, noting that UAE would likely follow and “get out of the gold standard too,” in the event the pact goes through. 

In February, Sherman, a longtime opponent of nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Riyadh, announced that he would be introducing legislation to require an affirmative congressional vote prior to the administration finalizing any nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said he had heard about the discussions, but declined to comment on whether he would support the agreement in its current format. The Florida lawmaker, however, expressed little concern over the U.S. sharing civilian nuclear power with Riyadh or other regional players, calling the subject “fair to discuss.” Though he noted that such a deal should ultimately be tied to the “Abraham Accords framework.”

“I think it’s something that is fair to discuss, but also that’s why Iran not getting a nuclear weapon is such a big deal, because that will start a nuclear arms race,” Moskowitz said.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) declined to comment on whether he had reviewed or would support the potential pact, but expressed a firm desire to limit the expansion of nuclear weapons in the region.

“We can’t have anybody else over there [in the Middle East] with nuclear weapons,” Burchett said.

When asked about the potential deal by JI, several Senate Republicans indicated they were unfamiliar with the plan. Other lawmakers, including Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), also noted they had not yet heard much regarding the potential agreement, stating they would need to look into the matter further.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), however, said he was not concerned about the agreement breaking the “gold standard.”

“I don’t necessarily assume that would break the gold standard on it,” Lankford said. “The biggest issue is where is the uranium coming from and who’s actually producing it, and where are they stored?”

While it was previously thought that a civil nuclear agreement would be linked to Saudi normalization with Israel, the Trump administration has notably uncoupled the two initiatives. In May 2025, a group of nine Jewish House Democrats wrote to Trump to voice their displeasure over the separation of the two objectives.

Meanwhile, analysts continue to express deep concern over the arrangement in its current format, citing that the lack of safeguards could create severe risks to national security and set a poor precedent for current and future U.S. nuclear cooperation frameworks. 

“The U.S. should be helping other countries with nuclear power but should strongly avoid helping them learn the fuel cycle and move closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon,” Elliott Abrams, an Iran envoy under the first Trump administration, said. “The gold standard remains our agreement with the UAE, where they agree not to enrich uranium. There is no reason the Saudis have to enrich uranium and the U.S. should not agree to it.”

Abrams called it “ironic” that the U.S. would remain locked in a confrontation with Iran over the threat of its nuclear weapons program while simultaneously considering “helping one of its neighbors enrich uranium.” He noted that the fallout from such a deal would inevitably compromise existing agreements and future negotiations with other Arab partners.

Experts also worry the concessions could undermine Washington’s strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi and incentivize other nations to pursue similar proliferation pathways.

“If we agree to this in the Saudi case, we will be abandoning a longstanding position and every deal we do after that will have to allow enrichment,” Abrams said. “In fact, we will have to renegotiate the UAE agreement as well.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), similarly expressed that the format of the deal could “undermine cooperation” with the UAE even as the Gulf state emerges as “America’s most valuable partner in the Gulf.”

He also cautioned that the pact could “threaten the global nonproliferation regime and raise the risks of a regional proliferation cascade.” Other experts joined in warning that bending established rules for Saudi Arabia could shift the calculus of neighboring states, prompting a rush to acquire enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.

“The fear is that other countries – Egypt, Turkey and the UAE – would use enrichment technology to develop the potential to make a nuclear weapon,” Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. Additionally, while the UAE has already agreed to the “gold standard,” Henderson said that commitment could “change if other regional countries obtain the technology.”

Critics have also argued that Saudi Arabia could eventually seek to manufacture a nuclear weapon of its own. While Riyadh is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) — which legally obligates the kingdom not to manufacture or acquire nuclear arms — several Saudi officials have explicitly stated in recent years that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, the kingdom would follow suit.

Andrea Stricker, director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said that the current U.S. approach “undermines decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy” and could allow Saudi Arabia with “the option to make fuel for nuclear weapons.”

“If the Saudis have access to the technology, and combined with weak IAEA inspections, they could build parallel covert capabilities. There is also little to stop Riyadh from ejecting U.S. officials from a plant and taking over,” Stricker said. “President Trump should stop this historic mistake before it is finalized, and if not, Congress should block the agreement.”

Ruhe shared similar concerns about Saudi Arabia’s potential long-term intentions. 

“Such a deal raises real concerns that the kingdom would one day decide to slip free of the U.S. deal and enrich uranium on its own, either openly or secretly,” Ruhe said. “Given its past ties, this could include covert cooperation with Pakistan or China.”

Saudi Arabia has previously entered into several bilateral civil nuclear arrangements with foreign nations, including Argentina, France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, and South Korea. Of greater concern to Washington, however, are Riyadh’s active agreements with Russia and China. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has steadily expanded its nuclear cooperation with Beijing. The two U.S. adversaries are capable of providing similar nuclear products to Riyadh without the same strict demands and nonproliferation commitments.

“Washington appears to want to sell civil nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia rather than allow a country like Russia or China to do so,” Henderson said. “The fear is that Saudi Arabia already has enrichment technology obtained from Pakistan and doesn’t want to give it up. Since Iran already has enrichment technology, Saudi Arabia thinks it deserves the same.”

U.S.–Saudi nuclear cooperation has historically remained limited. The two nations entered into a memorandum of understanding in 2008 that provided for low-level nuclear energy cooperation and later signed a nuclear safety cooperation memorandum of understanding in 2022. 

“With Iran’s enrichment program degraded due to U.S. and Israeli strikes, it would be far sounder policy to continue rolling back Tehran’s efforts and insist the Saudis rule out enrichment and reprocessing and maintain control of the spread of this sensitive technology in a proliferation-sensitive region,” Stricker said. “The United States should also remind the Saudis of extensive economic, military, and defensive support that Washington provides, assistance which should not be available if Riyadh tilts toward China.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he wants to start the process of winding down U.S. aid to Israel in the final two years of the Trump administration, as both countries work on a new memorandum of understanding.

Netanyahu made the comments in an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen after being asked about his political future and when Israel would be ready for new leadership. The prime minister responded by noting that while the Israeli people could decide at “any time” to remove him from power, he is currently focused on achieving four objectives: “finish[ing] the security envelope that we have to make vis-à-vis Iran and its proxies”; securing more investments globally to expand Israel’s AI and tech sectors; normalizing relations with several countries in the Middle East; and ending Israel’s reliance on U.S. aid. 

“The other thing I want to do is move away, in America, from aid to partnership. We’re now working on a memorandum of understanding, which will bring down the aid,” Netanyahu said. “I want it to start now, I want it to start in the last two years of the Trump administration and I want it to keep going down, coming to zero, because I think we’ve come of age.” 

The current MOU, which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid annually, runs through FY 2028. Netanyahu did not clarify whether he would like to see aid begin to wind down through changes to the current agreement, or whether he is focused on ongoing negotiations for the next one.

“Israel has a robust economy, and I want us to go from aid to a partnership where we both invest equal amounts and both share equally in the fruits of our innovators and technologies,” he continued. “I think that’s very, very important. It will also take away the myth that Israel is depleting America’s coffers.”

Netanyahu has said on multiple occasions since January that he hopes to wean Israel off of U.S. aid, initially suggesting in January that Israel would work to end U.S. aid within the next ten years. He pitched the aid drawdown to President Donald Trump in late December, an idea the president was initially bewildered by and not supportive of. 

Netanyahu also downplayed reports that Trump told him he is “f***ing crazy” in a phone call on Monday about Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon and rejected the notion that his relationship with the president had shifted, noting that the two speak as frequently as “every two days.” 

Still, he did not deny that the conversation occurred as reported.

“Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out and we do so as great friends,” Netanyahu said. “We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon we have common action.”

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said on Tuesday that the Trump administration will continue its legal battles against Harvard University and UCLA, accusing both institutions of continuing to neglect the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty.

Dhillon made the comments while appearing at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum in Washington, where she  condemned what she described as “egregious examples of antisemitism that have transpired here at home on American soil” since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel as “devastating and antithetical to our values as a nation.”

The assistant attorney general highlighted the department’s most recent lawsuit against Harvard in March, saying that the Ivy League university had been “tolerating race and national origin discrimination against both Jewish and Israeli students.”

“After Oct. 7, antisemitic mobs at Harvard and other campuses harassed and intimidated these students all across the campus. Harvard failed to take meaningful action and it failed to enforce its own rules in an equal manner,” Dhillon said. “Its own presidential task force documented the exclusion of Israeli and Zionist students from social spaces and extracurricular activities, but these findings were ignored. Harvard’s actions are inexcusable, and it cannot continue to take taxpayer dollars while turning a blind eye to abuse against Jewish and Israeli students.”

Turning to UCLA, Dhillon noted that the Justice Department had filed suit against the school last week “for its deliberate indifference to race and national origin discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

She recounted visiting the Los Angeles campus in recent weeks, noting that “it almost brought tears to my eyes” to hear a recent UCLA School of Law graduate share how a student held up a large sign behind his head with an inverted red triangle, a symbol used by Hamas terrorists to mark Israeli targets.

“This is outrageous behavior in America that this administration will not tolerate,” she said of the incident, and vowed that the Justice Department would continue pursuing its litigation. 

UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism action group released a 42-page set of recommendations last month urging the university to intensify its crackdown on anti-Jewish harassment, which Chancellor Julio Frank said “makes clear that antisemitism and all other forms discrimination and bigotry have no place at UCLA.

“The Civil Rights Division will fight antisemitism in our American universities and elsewhere, wherever we will find it,” Dhillon told the crowd. “The fight for the Jewish community’s right to learn, worship or live freely is not a fight that I or the Civil Rights Division take lightly. It’s a fight that I’ve personally committed to, because no person in this country should ever have to live in fear because of his beliefs or where he came from. With every institution and individual we hold accountable, our Civil Rights Division fights tirelessly to protect America’s Jewish community.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, criticized the Trump administration’s recent handling of the U.S. war in Iran, expressing concern about the possibility of a broader peace deal that does not address key issues.

“The U.S. has lost the plot on Iran,” Makovsky told Jewish Insider on Friday. “After significant military achievements, declaring the ceasefire was a huge mistake, and there was too much hype about what pressure a blockade alone would achieve. The net result has reduced U.S. leverage, and the perception that America is vulnerable if gasoline nears $5 per gallon.”

Makovsky said that the U.S. “should not pursue a deal” with Iran, arguing that such an agreement “wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on.” He said that a deal “will only enrich and strengthen the regime and demoralize the Iranian people.” 

“Instead, the U.S. should resume military operations for a couple weeks, weaken the regime and its nuclear and conventional capabilities further, cease the military campaign while maintaining the blockade and support the Iranian people in every way possible,” he said.

Makovsky spoke to JI in response after President Donald Trump’s announcement on Friday that he was nearing a decision on the agreement reportedly reached by U.S. and Iranian negotiators to extend the ongoing ceasefire by 60 days, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and continue nuclear talks. Makovsky made the comments prior to this weekend’s fighting between the two countries, with the U.S. striking Iranian air defenses and drone sites after Iran downed an American MQ-1 drone and shot missiles at U.S. forces based in Kuwait.

“Based on what appears to being negotiated, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened in return for certain Iranian pledges about what will be worked out in further negotiations,” Makovsky said. “There are even reports about a possible international investment fund in Iran, which would be preposterous with this regime.”

After holding a Situation Room meeting on Friday, Trump reportedly requested several amendments to the negotiated deal, including firmer commitments around Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, leading to another round of negotiations. Iranian state media reported on Monday that its delegation was suspending talks with the U.S. over Israel’s continued strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, maintained that the Trump administration’s commitment to free speech, including for extreme views, does not take away from its opposition to antisemitism, telling Jewish Insider in a wide-ranging interview that “the Nazis may have the right to post, but also the Nazis are bad and sick and stupid.” 

The senior U.S. diplomat acknowledged the tension between allowing hateful views on social platforms and concerns about rising rates of antisemitism globally, though she maintained that the path to successfully responding to Jew hatred requires support for free speech protections, and said that she looks forward to visiting Israel in the future. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Jewish Insider: You have been unequivocal in your public statements about the rise of antisemitism globally being a serious problem, while also maintaining your position on free speech protections. How do you draw that line between promoting free speech culture while ensuring you have the tools to fight antisemitism?

Sarah Rogers: I don’t see this as a line-drawing exercise between opposed priorities. There’s really no conflict between opposing antisemitism on the one hand and opposing censorship on the other. America has a proud history of opposing both. Censorship has not kept antisemites out of power, it has been deployed by antisemites who gain power. 

[Supreme Court Justice] Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to say that freedom of speech really means freedom for the thought that we hate. You can guard that principle while still saying, “Okay, there are some thoughts that we hate, and we’re going to speak against them, and we’re going to explain why these people are wrong, and we’re going to fight that battle in the marketplace of ideas.” I think every free speech advocate makes normative judgments about the speech that’s on offer, and a normative judgment I’ve always made is that the Nazis may have the right to post, but also the Nazis are bad and sick and stupid.

JI: How do you, or the State Department more broadly, view efforts to counter foreign operations and propaganda campaigns, especially with regard to media where the location of origin is often hidden? 

SR: Countering what is called in the [State Department] statute “foreign malign influence” is part of my statutory mandate, and we take it seriously. There are a whole bunch of tools in what you might call the counter-propaganda toolbox. 

This is an information environment where legitimacy and trust are more important than ever. Right now, we’re in this liminal zone. I think technology will refine this landscape a bit, but we’re in a zone where any image or any video can be fake, and so it is more important than ever if we were trying to persuade the global public that they can trust us. 

What I’m looking for ways to do now, and what the State Department wants to do now, is to counter these kinds of influence operations chiefly through exposure and through counter speech. We can expose the foreign providence of a lot of information and the inauthentic nature of some of the behavior. That doesn’t mean we have to reach out behind closed doors to Twitter or Facebook and urge them to censor anyone concurring with a particular narrative. We don’t have to do that. It is not my job to dictate what Americans can say or see online, but I can tell Americans what we and our partners are seeing online and let them make up their own minds. 

One thing that my office has done in the past also is try to promote technologies that improve the information environment and make that environment one in which we can more easily communicate about American priorities. 

I don’t want to fund tools that put a centralized thumb on the scale of permissible opinion, or that try to choke off permissible opinion before it gets to the public sphere. What I’d rather do is prospect and promote tools that respect and empower the audience to discern true and authentic information and have the kinds of conversations they want to have. 

Both X, formerly Twitter, and Meta have started rolling out the “Grok, is this true?” feature. It’s kind of interesting. Everyone knows the LLMs are trained on a consensus model of available opinion. A lot of them have gobbled up like most books ever written. They’ve scoured social media. When these models first debuted, they were pretty clunky. There was a whole genre of AI discourse that just consisted of people making their LLM say insane, woke, Kafkaesque things, but the models have gotten better. They’ve gotten better to the point where most people, even people with unpopular opinions, trust them to kind of collate facts. 

There are now some early scientific studies showing that, as a result, interacting with AI chatbots depolarizes people politically. It is conducive to lessened political extremism, and I think making that kind of tool available is an example of something we can do that doesn’t make people feel coerced or condescended to, it doesn’t spark that kind of oppositional, anti-institutional reflex, because you’re just letting them have access to something that they want and they enjoy. We’ve also seen those exact tools used to push back on antisemitic propaganda online.

JI: Can you speak to how private industry and social media companies have responded to your engagement on these issues?

SR: I’ve had a lot of congenial interactions with the tech sector. I’ve been accused by critics, including in Europe, of essentially being too staunch an advocate for the tech sector, which is ironic because I started my free speech activism career as a thorn on the side of Big Tech. When we’re advocating for the freedom of our companies not to censor, then of course they’re grateful. I also think, though, that within Silicon Valley, within the investor class and the executive class, and then the user bases of these companies, there is a real organic demand for ways to harness the powers of invention to make the information environment better. 

I have intentionally avoided having any interactions with tech companies that could reasonably be expected to result in the removal of content. If I ever had reason to do that, like if there was a tweet with the nuclear codes in it or something like that, I would try to make sure that I disclosed that to the public, but I avoid it as a matter of practice. Still, I have conversations all the time with people in the tech industry who are interested in how we discern content provenance, how we can help people integrate AI in ways that are less conducive to kind of AI psychosis type outcomes, how we can promote truthful information.

The only reason the information environment feels so new and different is because Americans are so good at innovating things that spread like wildfire and change the world. That’s fundamentally good. Now we’re in this new information environment, and you’ve probably heard me say this before, that this is on par with the invention of the telegraph or the film strip, and so there’s going to be some shudders and spasms as we adjust, but we can use the power of innovation and invention to make our environment better, not worse. I think tech is very receptive to that, especially because there’s all this kind of almost superstitious anti-tech discourse right now, and so there’s a natural appetite to prove that chorus wrong.

JI: With that in mind, how would you describe your role in terms of responding to this growing threat of foreign disinformation and the outgrowth of antisemitism that such propaganda efforts cause? Do you see your role as more of a behind the scenes dealmaker or something else?

SR: I would not say my role principally consists of brokering informal understandings with tech companies. I think because my role has a tech component of its portfolio, it’s just natural that I have some conversations and relationships with tech companies, but zooming out, my role is public diplomacy. That includes civil society grant making, it includes a lot of public advocacy, it oversees educational and cultural affairs, so I have a really broad umbrella of stuff I can do to interact with the information environment generally. 

On antisemitism, we have funded interfaith cultural restoration projects and educational projects to promote cross-cultural understanding and diffuse hatred. We are trying to promote tools like AI to rationalize and depolarize the information environment. We’re doing all that stuff, but the information environment part is only part of it. 

We are looking for more opportunities to publicly and candidly communicate on trends we’re seeing in the information environment, and we want to do it in a way where it doesn’t sound like we’re scolding the audience and telling them what not to believe. We just want to credibly share aggregated statistics and facts about what we’ve observed, and I want to make sure that we get that right. 

That means number one, I’ve actually instructed my staff, like whenever we operate on this issue, we need to literally or figuratively make a commitment to not censor American speech or censor anybody. We want to do the counter speech and exposure, and I think you’re going to see more of that.

I’ve collaborated a lot on the antisemitism issue with Rabbi [Yehuda] Kaploun, who’s our special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. We have participated in the Shabbat dinners with him. We had Rabbi Kaploun organize a Shabbat with officials from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and with a bunch of members of the administration. It was a really powerful coming together around this issue, and I think you’re gonna see more of those kinds of activities that my office is proud to be involved with, too. 

JI: Do you coordinate with other agencies and other departments to ensure that these efforts don’t overlap or contradict each other, be it about antisemitism or free speech or anything else that you’re doing?

SR: So one thing that I’ve done is I’ve encouraged my public diplomacy staff, who do kind of overt messaging for the State Department, to make sure that they are coordinated with other parts of the government, including, for example, the Department of War, who are engaged in messaging activities of overlapping topics in the same region. That’s just common sense, so we want to make sure that all of our messaging activities are aligned, or at least not at odds with each other. 

I think a great thing about this administration compared to the first one is that when President Trump staffed his first administration, he was kind of newly triumphant and his coalition was still consolidating, so there wasn’t this existing infrastructure and existing talent pool of people who were aligned with the administration’s foreign policy vision, and now there are. Because of that, I have great relationships with counterparts at other agencies, and it’s very easy for us to have these conversations, though all conversations you have in the government take longer and are more kind of bureaucratically ritualized than they should be.

JI: Have you made any efforts in your role promoting public diplomacy to highlight the U.S.-Israel relationship?

SR: The answer is yes. I was actually just in close touch with the Israeli Embassy about some America 250 commemorative activities that we were going to undertake, including “America Day” celebrations at three university campuses in Israel. We’ve done a lot of interfaith and church restoration activities in the Middle East that Israel is very supportive of. 

I also hope to visit Israel when scheduling considerations permit.

JI: Looking toward Europe, you and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) both spoke at the Hudson Institute last week about the free speech conversations we’re seeing across the Atlantic. What we’re also seeing are sharp rises in antisemitism across the continent. Do you connect the two? And if so, what do you see as the prescription for solving both issues?

SR: I absolutely connect the two. It’s interesting, another thing I always say when people ask me about this sort of tension between antisemitism and free speech is that I had my staff run numbers on this. When it comes to actual antisemitic hate crimes, not speech crimes, but crimes where someone gets hit or synagogues vandalized, the per capita rate of those in continental Europe and elsewhere in the Anglosphere is much higher by orders of magnitude than it is the United States, even though we have open season free speech, and they all reportedly have laws against antisemitism. 

There was this incident in London a few years ago where a caravan of pro-Palestine protesters drove through a reputedly Jewish neighborhood in London, screaming through a megaphone, “F*** Jews. Rape their daughters. Free Palestine.” There were no hate crime charges. I think London police claimed there wasn’t enough evidence that they’d done it, even though it’s on video. So who does get prosecuted under these hate crime laws? 

There is this famous Nazi hunter in France, Serge Klarsfeld. He’s one of the most famous Nazi hunters. He has a son, Arno Klarsfeld, who’s a well-regarded French jurist who actually helped prosecute some of the Nazi collaborators. Arno Klarsfeld was pursued by French authorities under French hate speech laws for basically saying that France should do mass deportations of people who’d already had their asylum hearings and were adjudicated as deportable. He was basically advocating for the same kind of policy that President Trump has tried to use to mitigate antisemitism in the United States.

You have this decorated French Jewish antisemitism jurist being threatened with legal punishment just for advocating a deportation policy, so that’s an obvious nexus, and I’m not saying it’s the only one, but it’s an obvious nexus between censorship law and antisemitism. 

After the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, you had a proposed hate speech law in response that would have had an exemption for any speech that’s religious. Well, if you were an ISIS jihadist, your speech was religious, so you’re basically carving out the exact ideology that appeared to have motivated that attack. So that’s how I see these issues in relation to one another.

JI: Is there anything else about Europe’s broader handling of antisemitism that concerns you?

SR: I think often there’s a sense that if you ban antisemitism legally then you have done the work required to oppose it, and I don’t think that is the story that the crime statistics tell. I don’t think it is the story that the political landscape tells. I’ve had many conversations with earnest European interlocutors who genuinely oppose antisemitism and want the best for the Jewish people in their countries, and so I don’t think bad faith is to blame. I just think that these laws are not the answer.

JI: One last question. I want to ask about Germany, specifically the far-right Alternative for Germany party. You’ve met with some of their officials and praised them specifically on free speech issues. AfD is a far-right ultra-nationalist party whose leaders have espoused antisemitic and pro-Nazi sentiments. Do you see these parties as antisemitic, and do you think the same free speech principles should apply to them despite their historical legacy? 

SR: I had one meeting with one AfD official and immediately was lambasted for purportedly being pro-Russia. The point I made at the time was that if this guy were really a Russian asset, he’s a pretty bad Russian asset, because he condemned censorship in that meeting and Russia’s a big fan of censorship. I also stand by what I also said at the Hudson Institute, which is that European policymakers don’t need to give right-wing parties a monopoly on common sense when it comes to mass migration or things like internet regulation. In fact, it would be healthy to have a democracy where multiple parties are against destructive mass migration, for example. 

In terms of Germany and its specific legacy on Holocaust denial laws, what I would say is this: I come from an American First Amendment tradition, so I would not want to see laws in the United States like that, but if the only thing these European countries were prohibiting was actual Holocaust denial or actual rank incitement of genocide against Jews, then I don’t think you’d be seeing as many arguments between, for example, European authorities and American internet platforms. 

We didn’t sanction [Former European Commissioner] Thierry Breton for asking that X take down a Holocaust denial post — that post would be protected under the First Amendment, but that didn’t lead to the sanctions. What we sanctioned Thierry Breton for doing was threatening an American company with European regulatory penalties for allowing an American politician, President Trump, to speak on an American platform, so our laws do differ there, but if that were the only difference, I don’t think you’d be seeing these flare-ups. The differences are far greater than that.

Republicans in both chambers of Congress are urging the Trump administration to move to permanently dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, with a new letter from House Republicans calling for a reworking of Palestinian refugee programs in the region.

In a letter sent to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, more than 90 House Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), called for a “broader view of the agency’s operations — not only in Gaza, but across the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria” and for the administration to ensure that the U.S. does not “continue to rely on failed systems that have further entrenched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The U.S. stopped funding UNRWA in early 2024, after revelations that several UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and Congress has continued to impose statutory bans on such funding since then, in spite of efforts by Democrats to reinstate funding for the aid agency.

“Ultimately, UNRWA has not been a force for stability but has instead perpetuated the refugee crisis and reinforced the conditions that have allowed terrorism to persist,” the lawmakers wrote. “We strongly urge your administration to take decisive action to fully dismantle UNRWA and transition its functions to more credible and trusted partners that are demonstrably free of ties to terrorism and committed to transparency, accountability, and peace.”

The letter suggests transferring funding for Palestinian refugee programs to their host countries directly or to other non-governmental organizations.

The letter states that UNRWA has “perpetuated and expanded” the Palestinian refugee crisis by conferring heritable refugee status across generations, “transforming what was once a finite humanitarian issue into a permanent and growing political challenge.”

The lawmakers also argued that in serving as the primary provider of public services in several countries and territories, UNRWA has “has reduced incentives for host governments to pursue long-term solutions, leaving millions dependent on the agency and prolonging the refugee crisis.”

And it raises concerns about the role that UNRWA educational curricula may have played in radicalizing young Palestinians.

The House letter follows a similar letter last week led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) with two dozen other Senate Republicans which also calls for dismantling UNRWA both in Gaza and throughout the region.

The letter highlights that UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks and that 10% of UNRWA’s employees in Gaza have been found to have ties to terrorist groups. It also notes that Hamas has diverted UNRWA’s supplies and repeatedly used the agency’s facilities for terror purposes.

The letter urges the administration to eliminate UNRWA from the U.N. budget.

“Any aid organization in Gaza or otherwise must be demonstrably free of ties to terrorism and committed to transparency, accountability, and peace,” the senators wrote. “We must ensure this failed system doesn’t continue reinforcing the conditions that have fueled terrorism from generations.”

Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, refuted accusations that the Trump administration has been ineffective in combating the spread of misinformation and hateful content on social media, arguing that free speech protections and efforts to combat disinformation are not mutually exclusive. 

Rogers made the comments while appearing at the Hudson Institute on Tuesday for a discussion on how the United States can modernize its public diplomacy strategy to advance American interests in a complex geopolitical environment without curtailing free speech. 

“We are sometimes disingenuously accused of being nihilists about the health of the information ecosystem. ‘You guys don’t want to censor the Internet, so that must mean that you want spam and bots and foreign propaganda to proliferate,’” Rogers said. “That’s not true. We care a lot about the ability of the public to determine the authenticity of content, to determine the veracity of content, to have the kinds of conversations they want to have. We just don’t think that there should be a centralized thumb on the scale, certainly not any government one, telling people what opinions are allowed.”

Asked by Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at Hudson, how the U.S. could “strike that balance” between censorship and disinformation, the under secretary said the best solution was “to give people tools that they can deploy or interact with that help them determine authenticity and veracity” of the content they’re consuming. 

Rogers noted that the U.S. is “using AI and other resources to trace what we do believe to be foreign propaganda,” without implementing measures to prevent that content from being accessible to the broader public. She specifically mentioned a disinformation effort targeting the U.S. after President Donald Trump launched the war in Iran earlier this year, during which an old map of American military assets in the Middle East “was proliferated online increasingly by Western journalists and by inauthentic accounts that are probably controlled by a foreign adversary.”

“They were proliferating this false information because there had been attacks on civilian population centers in a bunch of Gulf countries that were just totally unjustified, and the argument was, ‘No, look, there were American military assets on these countries.’ False,” Rogers said. “You saw Western leftists eagerly retweeting, for an adversary, fake propaganda.” 

While noting that her office has a portfolio ranging from the upcoming U.S. World Cup and the series of celebrations honoring the nation’s 250th birthday,to tech policy matters concerning free speech issues, Rogers said the two subjects were intertwined in her view. 

“I don’t see the free speech tech policy stuff and the America 250 sports and arts stuff as being that divergent,” she said. “I see them as a part of a combined stream of effort, which is to tell the American story you need the freedom to speak.” 

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) delivered introductory remarks at the gathering where he criticized what he described as “a deeply troubling assault on free speech and democratic self-government” across “much of Europe.”

Schmitt said that Rogers “has been at the forefront of the effort to restore seriousness, sovereignty and strategic clarity to America’s statecraft, and we’re fortunate to have her with us today.”

Former U.S. diplomatic officials and Middle East experts called on the Trump administration to fill dozens of ambassador-level Middle East posts, warning that not doing so could carry damaging consequences for U.S. influence and diplomacy in the region, while other former Trump officials argued the administration can manage regional diplomacy in its current format. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported that more than 100 U.S. ambassador posts remain vacant under the Trump administration, including several key posts in the Middle East. The U.S. currently has no formal ambassadors in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq or Kuwait. 

The vacancies stem from a mix of factors: a slower pace of nominations from President Donald Trump, a Senate confirmation process increasingly prone to delays and holds, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s December decision to abruptly recall nearly 30 career ambassadors.

The Trump administration has played down the vacancies, arguing that its foreign policy operation is running smoothly despite the empty posts. But several former U.S. officials and Middle East experts told Jewish Insider that leaving the post unfilled could be a serious diplomatic error.

Elliott Abrams, who served as Iran envoy during the first Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, called the vacancies a “huge mistake.”

“It’s a foolish and damaging failure by the Trump administration, and there’s no excuse for it,” Abrams said. “There are top career diplomats, such as the ones the administration has sent to Jordan, Bahrain and Oman, who could be sent, and surely there are potential political appointees who’d love to be in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi.”

Abrams noted that ambassadors often have access to members of royal families that lower-ranking U.S. diplomats do not, a dynamic that he said is especially important in monarchies.

“There’s simply no excuse for this, and no other country leaves such important posts vacant,” he added.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former State Department negotiator, expressed similar concern over the vacancies, saying “it would be better if they were filled with people.” He stressed, however, that the openings are more than a “narrow issue,” but rather a “reflection of a broader trend” in how the administration “makes decisions.” 

“It’s a lack of priority in diplomacy, and in diplomats,” Miller said. “It reflects a situation where the analytical assessments of how these countries would behave in response to a crisis like the war, what I call the ‘ground truth,’ is not getting to the president because there’s no one out there doing it.”

Miller said he believes the administration does not rely heavily on the advice of career diplomats or ambassadors, with key foreign policy decisions instead shaped by Trump’s inner circle.

“I think this reflects the fact that this administration does not rely on the advice and counsel of probably most of its ambassadors,” he said. “So does this surprise me? No, because part of the issue is that the White House and the president’s political team, including Jared Kushner and [White House Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, seem to have more say and more influence than a Department of State led by Marco Rubio.”

Still, Miller acknowledged that filling the vacant ambassador posts likely would not have altered Trump’s broader foreign policy or prevented the Iran war.

Dan Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama and later as the Biden administration’s special liaison to Israel on Iran, similarly warned that relying on senior officials in Washington rather than ambassadors on the ground could limit U.S. influence and understanding of regional dynamics.

“Senior Trump administration figures may believe they can manage these relationships just fine over the phone from Washington because of their close ties with Arab officials. But there are gaps and bandwidth limits that they cannot always overcome,” Shapiro said. 

“Senate-confirmed ambassadors are the only senior U.S. officials who spend all day, every day in dialogue with foreign leaders. So they simply have greater access to key players in their host governments, knowledge of how they reach decisions, and ability to ensure they hear the views of the United States than do more junior diplomats,” he added. 

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former British diplomat, explained that the vacancies are partly the result of a “downsizing” problem at the State Department, noting that the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in particular has suffered “budget cuts and lost over 80 staff since President Trump returned to office.”

“Many of those departing were senior, experienced diplomats who would have been candidates for Chief of Mission posts that were not offered to political appointees,” Fitton-Brown said.

Others who served in Trump’s first administration were less concerned, arguing instead that the White House can still conduct effective regional diplomacy through senior officials and direct relationships with Middle Eastern leaders.

Jason Greenblatt, a former White House Middle East envoy during the first Trump administration, told JI that while ambassadors “play an important role,” he does “not believe the administration is at any disadvantage … because of these vacancies.”

“The leadership and senior diplomats in those countries have strong and trusted relationships with President Trump and with the group doing much of the day-to-day work, including Steve Witkoff, Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance and Jared Kushner,” Greenblatt said. “Just as important, that group has President Trump’s deep trust and direct access to him. In this region, those trusted relationships, direct lines of communication and confidence from the president are more valuable than having an ambassador in place.”

Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff to the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, similarly downplayed concerns over the vacancies, and said filling such positions is “one of the most difficult parts of American foreign policy.”

“This stems from multiple causes, including the arcane Senate confirmation process and the frequent holds placed by senators on ambassadorial nominees over unrelated issues,” Gray said. “The approval process for all presidential nominees, including ambassadors, needs a major overhaul by congressional leadership. President Trump has been diligent in nominating high-quality, non-career diplomats for critical posts.”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

An antisemitism task force championed by UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk released a report on Thursday urging the university to intensify its crackdown on anti-Jewish harassment, as the school continues to be enmeshed in legal battles with the Trump administration. 

The 42-page set of recommendations, issued by the Initiative to Combat Antisemitism action group, suggested that UCLA set a deadline of 120 days to resolve disciplinary cases. It also said the university should more clearly define consequences for violations to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

The committee further urged UCLA to prevent faculty groups from using university resources or authority to express institutional support for anti-Zionism or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and to implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into rule enforcement and policy formation. 

“The roadmap announced today turns our values into action. It makes clear that antisemitism and all other forms discrimination and bigotry have no place at UCLA,” said Frenk, who took over the school’s leadership last year. 

UCLA’s Initiative to Combat Antisemitism was formed last year following recommendations of the 2024 Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. It is led by Stuart Gabriel, a professor in UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. 

“Our work at UCLA is building a strong foundation for a campus free of discrimination, and we hope our initiative can serve as a blueprint for colleges and universities nationwide as they seek to build more inclusive campuses,” Gabriel said. 

Daniel Gold, a member of the committee and executive director of UCLA Hillel, told Jewish Insider, “While initial work of our Initiative has concluded with the release of this important report, the work of everyone else at UCLA now begins to implement these changes and uphold the commitment towards a campus free of antisemitism.”

The report comes shortly after the school’s student government condemned a campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, labeling the speaker selection as “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence” and “a troubling disregard for Palestinian life.” 

UC Regent Jay Sures told JI at the time that UCLA’s student government was “shortsighted, antisemitic or both,” and called its members “lunatics” for condemning Shem Tov’s appearance. Sures, who is Jewish, had his home vandalized last year by UCLA Students for Justice in Palestine, which was since banned from campus. 

The federal government has been in a monthslong legal battle with UCLA, including a February lawsuit alleging that the campus failed to protect Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination.  

The DOJ complaint alleges that since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, UCLA “has ignored, and continues to ignore, gross and repeated violations of viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Jewish and Israeli faculty have been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted, and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images.”

Last year, UCLA settled a lawsuit with Jewish students who alleged that the university permitted antisemitic conduct during the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampments on the campus.

The new report does not specifically mention the Trump administration crackdown. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday that the Trump administration does not plan to and does not believe it needs to seek congressional approval should it decide to resume military operations in Iran, further sidelining Congress at a time when a growing number of Republicans are becoming hesitant about continued U.S. military operations.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who has been working on an Authorization for Use of Military Force to set parameters for the operation in Iran, said that the War Powers Act makes clear that the administration must terminate hostilities within 60 days without congressional approval, a timeline that expired on April 28. She said it did not appear, despite the administration’s assertions, that the hostilities in the Gulf had actually ended.

“Our view is that, should the president make the decision to recommence, that we would have all the authorities necessary to do so,” Hegseth responded. 

Hegseth and other top military leaders testified to both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees on Tuesday.

During the hearing, which took place a day before President Donald Trump is set to depart for China to meet with President Xi Jinping, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) emphasized that Beijing is “propping up Russia and Iran” and that it would have a significant capability to pressure Iran into changing course if it were to cease purchasing oil from Iran.

Graham also continued to voice concerns about Pakistan’s role as a mediator in the U.S.-Iran talks, citing a report from the day prior about Pakistan hosting Iranian military aircraft on its military bases. Both Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment on those reports.

“That tells me we should be looking maybe for somebody else to mediate” between the U.S. and Iran. “No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere,” Graham told the military officials. “I appreciate all you’ve done, I’m very supportive of it, but when it comes to Pakistan and China, enough already.”

Jules Hurst III, the acting Pentagon comptroller, said that the cost of the war thus far, including munitions used in the war, is around $29 billion, a sum that Democrats countered seemed low. 

Hurst acknowledged that estimate didn’t include the potentially sizable costs for rebuilding U.S. installations damaged or destroyed in Iranian counterattacks. He said that the costs of such rebuilding would be dependent on the U.S.’ posture and needs going forward and potential contributions from host countries.

He indicated it could also increase further depending on costs for repairing or replacing damaged aircraft.

Hegseth and Caine insisted that the U.S. maintains sufficient munitions stockpiles to carry out any missions that are required, though Caine said that he appreciated efforts by Congress to provide funding for more munitions production.

Hegseth also asserted that the war had been massively successful in achieving the U.S.’ goals, and that the U.S. has the capabilities for a range of scenarios including resuming the war, to ensure that it will end on the U.S.’ terms.

“There are lots of different discussions with our negotiating team, they’re happening … different drafts, different perspectives. It’s a very dynamic situation where a negotiated settlement could be the outcome here, where Iran does not have nuclear capabilities,” Hegseth said. He sidestepped questions about the specific terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Pressed on whether Iran’s support for terrorism and ballistic missile program are part of negotiations, Hegseth said that the negotiations are not his responsibility but “we have world-class negotiators” and “the core of it is the nuclear weapons issue” but “those other factors are always a factor.”

Asked by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, whether the U.S. had anticipated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Caine declined to discuss the specific advice he provided to the administration but said that the military had considered the full range of potential consequences.

“It seems to me that there’s been a different plan almost daily [for] dealing with this problem,” Collins said.

Caine said that the issue of the Strait of Hormuz is a complex one, as Iran uses small boats and low-cost drones to attack larger vessels, but urged Iran to “think wisely about their next moves” and open the waterway voluntarily.

Hegseth emphasized the effectiveness of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, insisting that “the economic pressure that creates on them greatly outstrips the pressure on us. … Nothing’s going in that we don’t allow to go in. And trust me, when we look at what Iran’s thinking about that — they know they can’t break it.”

He repeatedly dodged questions about specific plans for reopening the strait and securing trade moving through it in the short-term. He said that there are “certainly” military means by which the strait could be re-opened, but said that a diplomatic deal is the “preferred long-term approach.”

On both sides of the aisle, in both hearings, senior lawmakers raised questions about the administration’s decision to split off more than $300 billion of the proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget request into a proposed partisan reconciliation package, rather than trying to pass it through regular order. That request was also finalized prior to the war in Iran.

Lawmakers warned that reconciliation packages would not be a sustainable path to growing and maintaining U.S. defense capabilities in the long term, and that a third reconciliation package might not be feasible at all this year.

Amid the rise of a DSA-aligned mayoral candidate in the city, a senior Jewish community leader in Washington, D.C., excoriated the Democratic Socialists of America as an “evil” organization committed to driving Jews out of society.

Speaking on a webinar with other Washington-area Jewish leaders on Tuesday, Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, stridently criticized the far-left group.

“I think they’re a fringe, radical, antisemitic organization, and I happen to even think they’re evil,” Halber said. “They are trying to do in America what [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] seems to do internationally, which is to make being Jewish unacceptable in polite society.”

He said that the group wants to make Jews feel “isolated” and force them to “renounce Zionism” and their connection to Israel in order to participate in the political process. Antisemitism is “core to their belief,” he continued.

Halber described the activist group as emboldened and energized during the second Trump administration — as numerous DSA-aligned candidates make gains in local and national elections — and said that the Jewish community “should view DSA with alarm, because they are having a radical impact.”

And, he added, the Jewish community should be “very, very wary of political candidates who go out and seek their endorsement and who wish to affiliate.”

The Metro DC DSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Halber said it’s the responsibility of Jewish organizations to come together with allies to expose the DSA as “the fringe of American society that most people in America would be repulsed by.”

Tali Cohen, the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington regional director, said on the webinar that she has been “astonished by the rhetoric coming out of the D.C. DSA chapter.” 

Cohen said the group is attempting to “isolat[e] the Jewish community through exclusionary policies” — requiring endorsees to cut ties with “the overwhelming majority of organized Jewish community institutions” — and has “embrace[d] antisemitism as an organizational orthodoxy” through its embrace of anti-Zionism.

“If you read DSA’s platform, they have disproportionately and overwhelmingly chosen to focus on the world’s only Jewish state,” she continued. “The selective focus can suggest that something else is at work beyond just policy concerns.”

Cohen also raised concerns about the group’s opposition to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its efforts to defund the D.C. police, a project she said endangers the Jewish community.

The event comes following a high-profile clash between Jewish communal groups and the Washington DSA chapter over its endorsement questionnaire for the city’s mayoral race that required candidates to pledge to refrain from engaging with “Zionist lobby groups.”

Mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a DSA member endorsed by the group, said in response to the questionnaire that she would not attend events “promoting Zionism and apartheid.”

Alan Ronkin, the regional director of the American Jewish Committee in Washington, and ADL experts also spoke on the webinar.

Former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), who has been nominated by the Trump administration to be U.S. ambassador to Iceland, shared a three-minute clip of a speech by neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes on X on Sunday.

In the clip — shared originally by the account Wall Street Apes, which praised the speech without identifying Fuentes — Fuentes rails against immigration, but does not invoke the virulently antisemitic, pro-Nazi or racist rhetoric for which he is notorious. 

Long re-shared the video without any caption.

Fuentes, in the video, is wearing a large nametag that identifies him by his full name, and a caption that appears onscreen in the middle of the video also identifies him by name.

Long and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The former congressman is active on X, frequently sharing content from a range of conservative accounts on a variety of subjects, including other posts from the Wall Street Apes account.

Long briefly served as the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service early in the Trump administration. Long is a frequent speaker at gatherings of the Republican Jewish Coalition and received a shoutout from Trump at the 2023 RJC summit in Las Vegas. Trump referred to him as “a friend of mine who’s been incredible,” and gave a nod to his former career as “the greatest auctioneer” — professional skills that Long has occasionally showcased on the House floor. 

In 2018, Long used an auction call to drown out protests by far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who had interrupted a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about Twitter.

Loomer on Monday tagged several top Trump administration officials in a response to Long’s post, calling it “disqualifying” — focusing primarily on Fuentes’ recent criticisms of Trump, rather than his history of antisemitism.

The Senate rejected for the sixth time an effort from Democrats to force the Trump administration to halt the war in Iran — with the vote once again falling largely along party lines. 

The vote was the last before the conflict approaches the 60-day mark outlined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the executive to seek congressional approval for continuing hostilities or draw down U.S. forces. 

“After 60 days of war, it is long past time for Republicans to hold Donald Trump accountable,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement released prior to the vote. “Some of my colleagues have indicated that the War Powers Act’s 60-day mark is the moment they may join our efforts to bring this war to its conclusion. That time has come.” 

The latest resolution, sponsored by Schiff and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), failed by a measure of 50-47. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) did not vote. 

Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted with the opposition party. This was the first time in which Collins sided with the Democrats on the war powers votes.

“As I have said since these hostilities with Iran began, the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief is not without limits,” Collins said in a statement following the vote. “Further military action against Iran must have a clear mission, achievable goals, and a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close. I voted to end the continuation of these military hostilities at this time until such a case is made.”

Collins added that the 60-day war powers deadline is “not a suggestion; it is a requirement.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he was not surprised by Collins, noting that “she has been saying the 60-day clock is significant for her.”

He added that for him: “We haven’t reached the 60 days. That’s why I voted the way I voted.” However, Hawley said that he wants “to see an end to the war.”

Senate Republicans have told Jewish Insider they expect the White House to abide by the law and provide notification of a 30-day extension to Congress, which is permitted to ensure a safe withdrawal. However, the administration has not yet indicated publicly whether it will seek that extension or continue offensive operations, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday that the 60-day clock was “paused” during the ongoing ceasefire.

As the deadline approaches, a growing rift is emerging among Senate Republicans over whether to support an Authorization of Use of Military Force. 

“I would hope it wouldn’t come to that,” Hawley said of the White House potentially extending the conflict past the 60-day mark. “I think the administration has tried to remain within the statute.” Hawley has said that should the conflict extend past the deadline with no further action from the White House that he would debate an AUMF, but said he would prefer not to support authorizing a war he wants to see “wind down.” 

Hawley said he would “welcome further communication from the White House.”

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) also said he expects that the White House will “communicate” and “make a very strong legal argument.” He also noted that he believes the administration has “followed the War Powers Act provision so far in a very careful way.”

Young said that should an AUMF be necessary, he could see himself voting for a “properly structured authorization.” 

“That’s been my position throughout this exercise,” Young said, referring to the recent slate of war powers votes. “My hope would be that if we went down that road, we’d work with the administration to draft a properly scoped authorization for the use of military force.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said he is “not ready to commit to anything.”

“I want to make sure that we continue to get classified information on a timely basis from the Pentagon,” Rounds said. “I think today we had a very good classified setting with a lot of good information being provided. I think they [the White House] did a good job of sharing their point of view on it. So we’re moving in a good direction.” 

Asked whether he believes anything would change at the 60-day deadline, Rounds replied: “I have no reason to believe that’s the case right now.” 

Rounds said he believes a path forward between the U.S. and Iran will be “extremely difficult without regime change.”

“But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope for an agreement with this particular regime under very strict observations by outside forces to make sure that they adhere to any agreements we make,” Rounds added. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that while he thinks the current war is “unwise” and “illegal,” he said that if Congress “were to pass an AUMF in both houses it would stop being illegal.”

“I would stop critiquing it as an illegal war if they [Congress] passed an AUMF,” Kaine said. 

Kaine said he expects that another war powers vote “will come up right after [Congress adjourns for] recess.” 

“I think the testimony this morning shows they [the White House] know they got a 60-day problem,” Kaine said, referring to Hegseth’s remarks at the hearing.

Rounds, who serves on the Senate Armed Services committee, said that he would need to “go back and do a good review of that particular” remark.

“We’re in the middle of it,” Rounds said. “Once I have a chance to actually go through it myself then I’ll have a comfort level. I’m not going to disagree with him [Hegseth] at this stage.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon claimed on Tuesday that she’s trying to rebuild and expand the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), even as the administration pushes for tens of millions in funding cuts this year.

The Trump administration cut half of OCR’s staff and nationwide offices at the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term, eliciting strong condemnation from many Jewish community groups. OCR is the primary agency responsible for investigating and adjudicating complaints of antisemitism on college campuses. 

The administration has continued to push for further budget cuts to OCR and is more broadly attempting to dismantle the Department of Education and transfer some of its functions to other federal agencies.

At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, McMahon largely brushed off responsibility for the initial force reduction, claiming that the process to carry out the firings had been initiated before she was confirmed for her post and carried out shortly after she was sworn in, blaming “very stringent budgetary requirements that we were given.”

“We were in the process of looking at how to make sure that our Office of Civil Rights was in fact going to be able to handle cases, trying to make sure that we could get as many of them as possible,” McMahon said.

McMahon further claimed that the 2027 budget submitted by the Trump administration contains more funding to hire lawyers at OCR. The budget, in fact, requests a $49 million cut, from $140 million in 2026 to $91 million in 2027.

“It is a budget of increasing dollars for civil rights,” McMahon said, refusing to acknowledge, under questioning by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), that the budget submitted by the Trump administration called for a 35% cut to the OCR budget, to Murphy’s bewilderment.

“We are bringing back lawyers, we are hiring lawyers, with the person who has been so successful before in getting this done … we’re addressing [the case backlog] for rapid mediation, expanded resolution and multi-regional teams that we have now put back in place. Addressing the issues in the past were inadequate,” McMahon said.

McMahon was referring to Kim Richey, now the assistant secretary for civil rights, who has served in previous Republican administrations as well. McMahon praised her as highly “effective.” She also claimed to have re-hired all of the OCR attorneys who were fired, except those who took early retirement.

“It’s like black is white, it’s a 35% cut you’re proposing,” Murphy interjected.

Pressed by Murphy on the sweeping firings at the outset of the Trump administration, McMahon said, “That is hindsight.”

Pressed further, McMahon responded, “You know perfectly well what it is. We’ve brought people on board to handle these cases because I believe they should be handled. We should be dismissing these cases, we should be finding resolutions to them.”

In a detailed budget appendix submitted to Congress, the Trump administration also called for $274.5 million in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, flat funding with 2024 and 2025 but a cut from the proposed — but still not approved — $300 million expected for 2026.

Jewish groups and supporters of the program in Congress are pushing for between $750 million and $1 billion for the program.

👋 Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, JI’s Marc Rod gives a first-person account from inside the chaos of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner after an assassination attempt on Trump administration officials. We report on the merger between former Israeli Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid as they seek to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, and talk to University of California regent Jay Sures about the UCLA student government’s recent condemnation of an event with a former Israeli hostage. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Daniel Shapero, Josh Kushner and Tzipi Hotovely.

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

What We’re Watching

• King Charles III and Queen Camilla land in Washington today for their first state visit to the U.S. since assuming the throne. They’ll arrive to a city reeling from this weekend’s attempted attack on Trump administration officials at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. More below from JI’s Marc Rod, who was attending the event at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night.
• The king and queen will be welcomed by President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, and will have afternoon tea before attending a White House garden party.
• Trump is expected to convene a Situation Room meeting — sans King Charles — on Iran as the countries remain at an impasse amid stalled talks. The meeting comes days after plans for White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to go to Islamabad for a second round of talks were scrapped, with Trump telling Fox News on Sunday, “If they want to talk, they can come to us or they can call us.” Tehran has reportedly offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war without resolving its disputes with Washington over the future of the Iranian nuclear program.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow today, where he is slated to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Israeli President Isaac Herzog is in Kazakhstan today, where he is slated to meet with President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev.
• Israel Tech Week kicks off today in Miami. Speakers include Daniel Flesch, Phil Goldfeder and Gabe Groisman.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MARC ROD

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night began normally enough — a bustle of reporters, administration officials and members of Congress among other A-listers streaming from the packed lobby of the Washington Hilton down into the basement ballroom.

White House Correspondents’ Association President Weija Jiang, a CBS News White House reporter, finished her introductory remarks, and the thousands of guests packed into the ballroom tucked into their salads.

Then, a loud, shattering bang rang out from the other side of the ballroom. Initially, I didn’t think anything of it — I thought someone had dropped a large tray of food (as President Donald Trump said later, he thought the same thing).

Videos and other accounts of the evening indicate that someone from the security staff shouted from the front of the room that guests should get down. I didn’t hear it. My first indication that something was wrong was when I started seeing other guests ducking under the tables and security officers drawing their guns.

I tried to duck under the tablecloth, but no luck — another occupant of the table was already underneath, and there was no room. My heart pounding, I was forced to do my best to stay low — but I was in the backmost row of tables, right by a door, sitting directly in the aisle.

If a shooter came into the ballroom from behind me, I was a sitting duck. I was completely helpless and exposed.

Two thoughts ran through my head. The main one: I’m getting married in six days. I can’t die now. The second: I can’t believe this is happening to me again. (For those readers who are newer to Jewish Insider — I was also on scene for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.)

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

JOINING FORCES

Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid announce Knesset run ‘Together’

Former Israeli Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid will run in this year’s Knesset election as a joint party called “Together,” led by Bennett, they announced on Sunday. The move comes as the bloc of Zionist parties running against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc has recently polled higher than the parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, but with fewer than the 61-seat majority needed to form a government, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Behind the scenes: Sources close to both party leaders told JI that they began discussing a joint run a week ago, and reached the final decision on Saturday night. Bennett will lead the party after having a consistently stronger showing in polls in recent months. Bennett, a former IDF combat officer, described the merger as “the most Zionist and most patriotic thing we have ever done for our country.” Lapid said that the country “needs unity like air to breathe.”

Read the full story here.

Survey says: A poll conducted for Israel’s Walla news site on Monday found that Lapid and Bennett would lose seats if an election were held today, in comparison to previous polls when they were running separately.

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EXCLUSIVE

UC Regent Jay Sures slams UCLA student body as ‘lunatics’ for condemning former Israeli hostage’s speech

Jay Sures, vice chairman of United Talent Agency and a regent of the University of California system, slammed the members of UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association who authored a letter condemning former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov’s recent campus appearance as “shortsighted, antisemitic or both,” in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen. 

What he said: “Why would anybody send out a letter condemning a hostage who is a student who was held in captivity for over 500 days? You have to be a complete lunatic to sign on to that letter,” Sures told JI on Friday, shortly after he issued a letter to the body stating he was “disgusted and appalled” by its condemnation. 

Read the full story here.

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SHELL GAME

Publisher of Drop Site News pushes conspiracy theory about a California Jewish family-owned business

Nika Soon-Shiong, the publisher of Drop Site News who is also the daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, is circulating conspiracy theories seeking to tie a California-based Jewish couple behind a major pistachio processor to the recent U.S.-Israeli military strikes in Iran, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Singled out: In a recent social media post that drew more than 1 million views, Soon-Shiong, citing unverified online claims that the United States and Israel had targeted pistachio warehouses in Iran this month, singled out Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaire owners of the Wonderful Company, which grows and processes a large percentage of California’s pistachios as well as other products including almonds and mandarin oranges.

Read the full story here.

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ON THE TRAIL

Mamdani veto of educational buffer zone bill draws rebuke from Jewish groups

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani exercised his veto power for the first time since entering office on Friday to block a bill that would standardize NYPD policy around protests at educational institutions, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.

What they said: “We are deeply disappointed by Mayor Mamdani’s decision,” said the UJA-Federation of New York, the Anti-Defamation League of New York/New Jersey, Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, American Jewish Committee New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the New York Board of Rabbis, Orthodox Union, The Rabbinical Assembly, StandWithUs and Teach NYS, in a rare united response. “This veto is a profound failure of City Hall to demonstrate to all New Yorkers that our safety is a priority.”

Read the full story here.

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STAYING PUT

Virginia Del. Sam Rasoul, who faced backlash over anti-Israel rhetoric, won’t run for Congress

A Virginia state lawmaker with a history of inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric who had been exploring a congressional run announced on Friday that he would instead remain in the state’s House of Delegates. Sam Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who is the son of Palestinian immigrants, said he would hold onto his seat in the state Legislature to continue focusing on his work chairing the Education Committee, a role that has garnered concern from the state’s Jewish community due to his heated comments, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Zoom out: The decision comes days after Virginia voters approved a new congressional map that is likely to deliver four additional House seats to Democrats, prompting a reshuffling as politicians in the state opt to run — or not to run — for the newly drawn Democratic-friendly seats.

Read the full story here.

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LINKEDIN LEADER

LinkedIn veteran Daniel Shapero tapped as new CEO

Microsoft, the parent company of LinkedIn, has tapped Daniel Shapero, the professional networking site’s current chief operating officer, as its next CEO, current chief executive Ryan Roslansky announced earlier this week, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Announcement: Shapero, who has been serving as COO since 2021, wrote on the platform Wednesday, “Today, I’m taking on the role as CEO of Linkedin. I joined Linkedin in May 2008 as employee #300ish, and it’s easy to say that my time at the company has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.” The network has close to 1.5 billion users worldwide.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Riyadh’s Reluctance: Foreign Policy’s Steven Cook considers why Saudi Arabia is not playing a more central role in the U.S. and Israeli conflict with Iran. “This is not to suggest that Saudi Arabia should get into the fight, but it is revealing that a country that billed itself as a rising power and the most important country in the Middle East is betwixt and between when its neighborhood is burning down. The Saudis clearly have interests at stake, but rather than taking action, they have been issuing strongly worded statements while others, including their adversaries, are shaping the region. It seems that Riyadh would be better off taking concrete steps to protect its interests. What is the saying about it’s better to be at the table than be the meal?” [FP]

Feeding Israel to the Left: In his Substack “The Abrahamic Metacritique,” Hussein Aboubakr Mansour raises concerns about the willingness of Democratic leaders to shift leftward on issues related to Israel amid pressure from the activist left. “The establishment’s reasoning is basic strategic calculation: the left will not relent on Israel; a civil war inside the party over the Jewish state would destroy the coalition; therefore, the rational move is to concede this issue, preserve party unity, and proceed with the moderate agenda on everything else: affordability, climate, migration, AI, etc. Feed this one thing to the beast, and the beast will be satisfied. It is an intelligent calculation, a genius one, really, but it is also a catastrophic one, because it rests on a complete misapprehension of what is being conceded and to whom.” [AbrahamicMetacritique]

Battle Royal: For Fox News, presidential historian Tevi Troy does a deep dive into the history of visits to the U.S. from U.K. royals. “When [Queen Elizabeth II] visited Eisenhower in 1957, she helped smooth over tensions that had emerged between Britain and the U.S. as a result of the Suez Crisis. … And now, as King Charles embarks on his first visit to the U.S. in President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. and Britain are in the midst of a disagreement over the war with Iran. Charles is not a political ruler, but perhaps his visit, like his mother’s in 1957, can smooth over tensions and help maintain the special relationship America has long had with the United Kingdom.” [FoxNews]

Word on the Street

Axios reports that during the active conflict with Iran in March, Israel sent the United Arab Emirates an Iron Dome battery, interceptors and several dozen IDF troops to operate the missile-defense system; a senior Emirati official told Axios, “We are not going to forget it,” while a second official said, “It was a real eye-opening moment. To see who our real friends are”…

A new memo from the State Department acknowledges that the U.S.’ decision to launch Operation Epic Fury against Iran came — at least in part — at Israel’s request, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports… 

An 11-year-old Israeli girl who was critically wounded in an Iranian cluster bomb attack on her home in Bnei Brak earlier this month died of her injuries…

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Tucker Carlson suggested that he was given advance notice of the joint U.S.-Israel operation targeting Iran in late February, saying he received a text message at 10 p.m. ET on Feb. 27 — hours before the start of the operation — that read, “We’re going”; Carlson did not say who sent the message, acknowledging only that it was not President Donald Trump or Vice President JD Vance…

The WSJ notes that at the last meeting between Trump and Carlson, the president displayed a letter from evangelical leader Franklin Graham calling Carlson an antisemite…

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on a Chinese oil refinery and more than three dozen shipping firms and vessels tied to Iran’s oil export industry…

The New York Times examines the Trump administration’s “haphazard” approach to sanctions on Russia and Iran as Moscow and Tehran leverage their oil reserves amid a volatile market…

The Financial Times looks at the United Arab Emirates’ recent request that Pakistan repay $3.5 billion in loans, citing Islamabad’s deepening ties with Saudi Arabia and what the UAE “considers Pakistan’s meek response to Iranian attacks on the Gulf”…

UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed’s son-in-law Mohammed bin Hamad Al Nahyan and EDGE Group CEO Faisal Al Bannai — both of whom advise MBZ — visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., and made a swing through the U.S. to meet with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and defense firm Anduril, The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger reports…

Talks between the U.S. and Israel on the next 10-year memorandum of understanding are expected to begin next month, and will include Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Baram, the director-general of Israel’s Defense Ministry, and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter representing Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and State Department senior advisor Michael Needham…

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) dropped his opposition to Kevin Warsh’s nomination to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, clearing the way for Warsh to assume the role when Jerome Powell’s term ends next month…

A federal judge in Texas halted the deportations of six family members of an Egyptian man who firebombed demonstrators, killing an elderly woman, at a Boulder, Colo., march last year raising awareness about the Israeli hostages in captivity in Gaza…

Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner announced on Friday the launch of Thrive Eternal, a capital holding company that will acquire a minority, non-controlling stake in the San Francisco Giants as its first major partnership, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports…

The New York Times interviews Hollywood agent Michael Glantz, who went viral after being filmed eating his burrata salad at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday as other guests around him ducked for cover…

Counterterrorism authorities investigating a string of antisemitic attacks in London arrested a 37-year-old man on suspicion of preparing to carry out terrorist acts; more than two dozen people have been arrested in connection with attacks against the country’s Jewish community since late March…

The Telegraph goes behind the scenes of the Met Police’s effort to track down arsonists targeting synagogues in the London area…

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is expected to push for a mediated resolution to reach a plea deal in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, bucking pressure from the White House to pardon the prime minister…

Israel’s Cabinet signed off on the nomination of Michael Lotam to be the country’s first ambassador to Somaliland, four months after Jerusalem recognized the sovereignty of the East African nation…

The Cabinet also approved the appointment of former Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. Tzipi Hotovely to serve as the head of the National Public Diplomacy Directorate within the Prime Minister’s Office, which has been vacant for more than two years…

Israel launched a wide-scale, multimillion-dollar campaign – led by former Trump administration official Brad Parscale — to create pro-Israel web content that would be picked up by AI platforms…

Cardiologist Eugene Braunwald, who as a child fled Nazi Europe and went on to reshape how modern medicine approaches heart attacks, died at 96…

Diplomat Lionel Rosenblatt, whose experiences living in Haifa, Israel, as a child inspired him to join the U.S. Foreign Service and later lead Refugees International, died at 82…

Pic of the Day

Stars of the upcoming Keshet 12 series “Unconditional” attended the world premiere screening of the drama, about a mother-daughter pair stranded in Russia, ahead of its broadcast tonight, at the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Birthdays

Showrunner, director, screenwriter and producer, Brian Koppelman turns 60…

Financial executive, he retired in 2014 as head of marketing for money manager Van Eck Global, Harvey Hirsch turns 85… Nonprofit executive who has managed the 92nd Street Y, the Robin Hood Foundation, the AT&T Foundation and Lincoln Center, Reynold Levy turns 81… U.S. senator (R-WV), Jim Justice turns 75… Physician and a former NASA astronaut, she is a veteran of three shuttle flights with more than 686 hours in space, Ellen Louise Shulman Baker, M.D., M.P.H. turns 73… Director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority until 2020, he was previously a member of Knesset and deputy director of the Shin Bet, Yisrael Hasson turns 71… VP at Covington Fabric & Design, Donald Rifkin… Biologist and professor of pathology and genetics at Stanford University School of Medicine, he won the 2006 Nobel Prize in medicine, Andrew Zachary Fire turns 67… Co-founder of Casamigos Tequila and owner of restaurants, bars and lounges worldwide, Rande Gerber turns 64… Former member of the Knesset for the Shinui party, Yigal Yasinov turns 60… CEO of ZAM Asset Management, Elliot Mayerhoff… Founder and CEO of NYC-based Gotham Ghostwriters, he served as a senior advisor for Sen. Joseph Lieberman in his vice presidential and presidential campaigns, Daniel Gerstein turns 59… Israeli actor, entertainer and television host, Yitzhak “Aki” Avni turns 59… Attorney and journalist, she is a contributing editor at Newsweek and senior editor at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick turns 59… Author, political analyst and nationally syndicated op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, Dana Milbank turns 58… U.S. senator (D-NJ) since 2013, he was previously the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker turns 57… Israeli television and radio journalist and former member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home party, Yinon Magal turns 57… Professor of science writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Seth Mnookin turns 54… Cinematographer and director, Rachel Morrison turns 48… Identical twin brothers, between the two of them they won 11 Israeli championships in the triathlon between 2001 and 2012, Dan and Ran Alterman both turn 46… Israeli screenwriter and producer, she has written numerous advertisements and screenplays, Savion Einstein turns 44… VP of AIPAC’s mid-Atlantic region, Leah Berry… Television and film actress, Ariel Geltman “Ari” Graynor turns 43… Basketball coach, analyst and writer, Benjamin Falk turns 38… Senior creative director at Trilogy Interactive, Jessica Ruby… Head of climate data at Watershed, Jonathan H. Glidden… Research fellow at Emory University law school, David Jonathan Benger… Entrepreneurial investor, Noah Swartz turns 33… Medical resident at UCLA Health, Amir Kashfi… 

Nearly two months after the U.S. and Israel jointly launched a military campaign against Iran dubbed Operation Epic Fury, Washington acknowledged in a new State Department memo that its decision to participate in the conflict came — at least in part — at Israel’s request. 

The statement, in a document authored by State Department Legal Advisor Reed Rubinstein, notes that defending Israel is just one part of a larger rationale for attacking Iran’s capabilities that Rubinstein says relies on decades of evidence. But it comes after several Trump administration officials pushed back on the narrative that Israel had forced the White House’s hand. 

“​​The United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,” Rubinstein wrote in the document, dated Apr. 24. 

The memo is the most detailed look yet at the Trump administration’s justification for the latest conflict with Iran, which began on Feb. 28. Lawmakers, including leading Republicans, have at times expressed frustration that the administration is not being transparent enough in providing information about the war effort. 

There is currently a ceasefire in place as the two countries are engaged in negotiations, although President Donald Trump has threatened to restart military strikes if a deal is not reached. 

While Rubinstein writes that Israel requested the U.S. participate in striking Iran, his broader argument is that Iran has demonstrated “malign aggression” against the U.S., Israel and other allies in the region for decades. Therefore, according to Rubinstein, this latest salvo is merely the next stage of a decades-old conflict that began anew last June. 

“The operations recommenced in late February were part of an armed conflict with Iran that has been ongoing for years and, at the very least, since June 2025” when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear and military facilities, Rubinstein writes. Since the conflict did not officially end in June — a ceasefire is not the same as a formal agreement to end hostilities — he concludes that it has been ongoing, and the current fighting is just a new phase in the war. 

“If a conflict has not ended, then it must be ongoing,” Rubinstein argues.

The memo documents Iran’s extensive history of targeting American forces and assets, including through its proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. He dates this part of his analysis back to 1979, when the Islamic Republic was created, arguing that the country has been attacking the U.S. and its “interests and its allies” ever since. It was Iran’s “clear pattern of unprovoked aggression and direct and proxy attacks against Israel and the United States” that spurred the U.S. to act last June, he writes. 

Rubinstein concludes by pointing out Iran’s response to the U.S. attacks: “wreaking havoc throughout the region.” That, according to Rubinstein, “further underscores the fundamental necessity, utility, reasonableness, and lawfulness of Operation Epic Fury’s mission and goals.”

The Trump administration’s latest push to ease tensions between Israel and Lebanon faces another key test this week as diplomats prepare for the second round of direct talks between the two countries on Thursday.  

The State Department-hosted discussions are expected to focus on extending the current ceasefire, which is due to expire Sunday, and a reported U.S. request that Beirut repeal long-standing laws that criminalize contact between Lebanese citizens and Israelis. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has said his aim in the talks is to see the IDF withdraw completely from the country. 

The discussions follow a historic first meeting last week — the highest-level direct dialogue between the two nations in over 30 years. Since the ceasefire went into effect shortly after the meeting, Hezbollah has repeatedly fired on Israeli troops, provoking retaliation by the IDF. Both sides have accused the other of violating the ceasefire agreement.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah killed two French soldiers who were part of the U.N. peacekeeping force, prompting some leading Republican lawmakers to call for conditioning future U.S. support for the Lebanese Armed Forces on tangible action in disarming Hezbollah.

The talks also come as President Donald Trump extended the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran indefinitely until negotiations between Tehran and Washington are complete. Should the current halt in hostilities fall apart, experts suggested to JI, Hezbollah may reignite hostilities with Israel on an even broader scale. 

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Jewish Insider that he wants to see “peace” between Israel and Lebanon, adding that it would be a “great alternative” to the status quo.

“We’ve just got old leaders on all sides and all they want is war because it keeps them in power,” Burchett said. “Old men make decisions and young men die. I think they [Lebanon] are realizing maybe capitalism is probably a better route and not killing all their people.”

Burchett also expressed that he would “absolutely” back the U.S. pushing Lebanon to repeal its anti-contact laws. “I love the First Amendment, and I like it all over the world,” he said. 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) shared the sentiment, telling JI he hopes “we can get a deal there,” adding that he would like to see a ceasefire extension to help achieve that. 

“If the Lebanese people have made a decision that they don’t want Hezbollah in their country anymore, they don’t want the Iranians having control over their country, I think that’s great news for Lebanon,” Moskowitz said. He also expressed support for the U.S. urging Lebanon to repeal anti-normalization laws, stating, “If repealing the law is a step to get a deal, then I support it. There needs to be a deal.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said he is hoping to see the ceasefire extended, adding that “we all hope for the disarmament and hopefully disbanding of Hezbollah.”

“We’ll see whether the Lebanese government is going to make good on its promises to have a monopoly of force in its own territory,” Sherman said. He added that should the U.S. push Lebanon to repeal its anti-normalization laws, it would be an “excellent step.” 

“It would be a good idea and hopefully done in coordination with other good steps by both Israel and Lebanon,” Sherman said. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) also agreed that such action “would be a positive step forward toward long-term peace and stability.” He added that he would like to see the current ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon be extended.

“Obviously we want long-term peace and stability,” Lawler said. “Talks have been going relatively well. We will see what comes next.” 

Robert Satloff, executive director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he anticipates that the meeting “will be the bridge between last week’s historic opening on Lebanon-Israel direct talks and the start of formal negotiations between the two sides.” He said that it is “quite likely the two sides will agree to extend the ceasefire.” 

“One can also expect discussion of other elements that will contribute to the success of the talks, including a possible meeting between U.S., Lebanese and Israeli leaders, the U.S. request that Lebanon repeal repressive laws that ban contact between citizens of the two countries and measures the Lebanese army and security forces should take to signal that this ceasefire will produce a better outcome for all parties than what followed the November 2024 ceasefire,” Satloff added. 

Rachel Brandenburg, a senior policy analyst at Israel Policy Forum, said “the mere fact of a second meeting is a positive sign.”

“Top priority for Israel is the disarmament — and more so, dissolution — of Hezbollah, and retaining the freedom of action to continue to strike Hezbollah where and when they determine necessary for their own self defense,” Brandenburg said. “For the Lebanese government, sitting at the table with the Israeli government is both politically risky and an important opportunity for them to be recognized as and assert their place as the only recognized authority of the Lebanese state.”

David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, meanwhile, said that expectations for talks “should be kept low” and expressed skepticism over whether Beirut would truly work to disarm Hezbollah. He argued that Lebanon is seeking a return to the status quo, noting that despite Trump’s intentions to bridge ties between the two nations, “President Aoun declined to speak with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and sources close to Aoun have rebuffed the possibility of a meeting between the two leaders as ‘premature.’”

“The question is whether Lebanon is seeking this breathing room as an end in and of itself or to begin gradually acting against Hezbollah,” Daoud said. “As matters stand, I see no indication of the latter.” 

Daoud noted that Lebanon has had a “strong reluctance to call out Hezbollah by name since the ceasefire took effect” and also referenced a statement from Salam in which he said the country is “not seeking confrontation with Hezbollah.” 

Yoni Tobin, a senior policy analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, also called for caution in optimism over the talks, stating that a ceasefire “does not constitute progress,” also noting that past ceasefires that halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah “only kicked the can down the road in terms of disarming Hezbollah.” He also expressed skepticism over Lebanon repealing its anti-normalization law. 

“Beirut repealing its law criminalizing communications should be a clear-cut U.S. demand in talks, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that is on the table right now — though it should be,” Tobin said. “As one of the main funders of Lebanon’s military, Washington has the leverage to compel Beirut to reverse this arcane law, which remains an obstacle to what is squarely in the American interest: a normal, productive relationship between Israel and Lebanon.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping the door open to a possible 2028 presidential run, saying “only the good Lord knows” what comes next as he continues to reestablish himself in the private sector and policy world after serving in the first Trump administration. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Jewish Insider, Pompeo emphasized that there will be a “donnybrook” of competing visions for both parties in the next election cycle, and urged candidates to focus on “important issues” rather than online theatrics. He also praised Columbia University, where he now teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs, for “beg[inning] to get back the correct leadership … in a way where more voices can be heard.”

The conversation came one day after Pompeo made a brief visit to the State Department for a private ceremony unveiling his official portrait. The gathering included an appearance by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who delivered remarks to the crowd on his predecessor’s tenure as the chief U.S. diplomat. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Jewish Insider: What’s your message to the current Iranian leadership if you were traveling to Islamabad, Pakistan, on behalf of President Trump to negotiate an end to the war in Iran? 

Mike Pompeo: My message would be that you’ve lost. You’ve lost the people of your country, who no longer want you to lead. You’ve lost the capacity to project terror around the world. You’re about to lose any capability to use nuclear weapons to continue to blackmail the world. The Strait [of Hormuz] is going to be reopened. You’re going to miss payroll in just a few weeks, because you’re not going to be able to ship product and receive currency that is usable in foreign exchange, and people will stop doing their jobs. 

You miss payroll enough times and all of a sudden, Hezbollah decides it’s not as great a fighting force, or the Shia militias, or the knuckleheads in Yemen, the Houthis. They’ve all become hooked on Iranian money. 

There is a solution that is different to that. It’ll mean you’re not in power. It will mean that you lose. It will mean that you personally lose power, but the other alternative is that you will be killed. 

JI: Do you think that the president made the right decision by reentering negotiations with the Iranians when he did, or do you think there are targets he should have hit beforehand, for military or diplomatic leverage?

Pompeo: I think the blockade is sufficient to merit another try. Look, I’m deeply skeptical. I’m not sure there is a decision maker in Iran today. I think there are multiple fractured decision making processes and lots of confusion.

I don’t know that he needed to go after additional targets. The denial of their capacity to move product through the strait is a very significant impact on them, but I do think it’s the case if, in fact, the Iranian regime cannot coherently present a resolution that will look and feel to them like surrender … — because they’re going to give up the entirety of their nuclear program, they’re going to have to stop funding their proxy forces, their ballistic missile program is gone, their industrial base will have to be shut down and redirected towards commercial activity, not terror; that will feel like surrender to them — then I think the president will have to begin to go back at some of those industrial targets that continue to pose risk to Israeli and American servicemembers that are in the region, and more broadly, to commercial activity that needs to move through the region as well. 

JI: We’re seeing a lot of reporting about various terms that the Trump administration has purportedly offered Iran in these talks, specifically when it comes to the enrichment of uranium. There have been reports suggesting the U.S. proposed a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s enrichment program, while others allege a 10-year pause is being discussed. What do you make of these reported offers and, more broadly speaking, what would a good deal look like to you?

Pompeo: Color me cynical, but having lived as a secretary of state for two and a half years, when I see that reporting — and I don’t have first hand knowledge — I suspect that is someone playing games. 

I put no credit in anything that I read in The New York Times or The Washington Post, only in the sense that they don’t know or they heard from a single individual that wasn’t actually representing the holistic view of the U.S. government. I spend no time thinking about those. I do spend a lot of time thinking about what “good” looks like. Good is infinity. 

I’m also practical as someone who was a practitioner. I get it. You don’t ever get forever, but you don’t put external constraints on duration when it comes to something as serious as a regime that is in power with the capacity to inflict enormous harm on the world, with a conventional force that is serious and a nuclear capability that is real. 

There’s two things. One, you can’t pay them. That’s what President Obama, then President Biden tried to do, send pallets of cash to buy your way out of this solution. The regime is not for sale. Second, I think it’s also the case that you can’t falsely give them hope that says, ‘You’re going to be able to return to status quo in five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. I think it’s the case that we’ve reached the moment where now this is a durational change in the nature of the regime. 

Maybe some of the names will be the same, maybe the good spirit will move them and they will become a normal nation again. These are the things we hope and pray for as Jews and Christians, but we also do it with the knowledge that it is unlikely, and that means we have to change the leaders that are actually directing activities inside of the country.

JI: Do you think NATO has handled this moment and responded to President Trump deciding to take action in Iran well? The president is vocally frustrated with them and thinks they’ve been a thorn in the administration’s side.

Pompeo: We all know that you figure out exactly who’s with you in times of stress. This is true in our personal lives. It’s true in our professional lives. It’s certainly true in sovereign interactions. 

Putting aside NATO for the moment, the way some of the European nations have behaved is absolutely abhorrent. I get that they weren’t brought in at the beginning and how that makes it complicated and it creates hurt feelings, but this isn’t about feelings. This is about national sovereignty and the safety of their own citizens. 

Whether it was Spain or another nation that wouldn’t do so much as to be quiet and allow our aircraft to fly through their space, for someone who has been a staunch defender of NATO, because I believe deeply it has been important to the United States of America and to global security, to watch a leader of a country cozy up to China while the United States is doing its level best to save the very security for his own citizens is deeply indecent. 

I hope there will come to be an understanding that America is indeed the good guy in this all throughout Europe and many nations in Europe, that’s why I hesitate to broad brush NATO. Many nations in Europe have actually been great and have done their best with the tools that they have available. Others have chosen a path that is very different from that. I think that will be something that takes a long time to rebuild — the trust with those countries — and they’ll have to demonstrate that they are worthy of partnership with Israel or the United States or the West.

JI: Are you still facing death threats from Iran or has your standing with Tehran changed as a result of the war?

Pompeo: As far as I know, they have not lifted the fatwa on me, so yes. We still do our level best to have adequate security to keep me from being killed by the Iranians, who have repeatedly said that they would like to see me go away. 

JI: How would you grade Israel as an ally, both historically and in the last few years in the post-Oct. 7, 2023, landscape? 

Pompeo: First, the United States and Israel have sovereignty, they’re independent of each other, and a different set of priorities and a different set of understandings on particular matters, very full stop. Second, they are the most fundamentally important ally and a great partner and enormous friends and important to the United States in so many deep ways. 

As a Christian, this matters to me, but more importantly as a security matter, I had no better partner than the Israeli intelligence services when I was CIA director and Prime Minister Netanyahu and the foreign policy and security team inside of Israel when I was secretary of state. They did so many things to help America, often when it was difficult and much more in our interest than theirs. 

That doesn’t mean we’re not going to have knock down, drag out fights over certain things. I’m sure that’s going to be true. We’ll have different target priorities, and that’s normal. It would be odd if you didn’t find that, but boy, I don’t know that the United States has ever had a closer military and security relationship than today between the United States and Israel, and I think the Iranians found that out the hard way. 

They saw us flying together. They saw us intelligence sharing together. They saw the hard work that is the logistical tail that sits behind all of this. It doesn’t get much glory, but you’ve got to move a lot of ammo, a lot of fuel, a lot of people, a lot of stuff. We did that alongside Israel, and it would have been very difficult for either of us to have achieved what’s been achieved today without the other.

JI: With that in mind, we’re seeing a real shift in attitude, especially with young people, both in the Democratic and Republican parties on supporting Israel. What’s your reaction to this and what do you think was the catalyst for this change? Do you attribute it to negative feelings about the war on terror in the 2000s? What role do you think antisemitic figures in the podcast space play?

Pompeo: The causation is so difficult to identify. I think probably each of those has some element of impact and shaping. Israel has always been a flashpoint because of the conflict between Israel and the terrorists, but it’s been framed as a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with Israel pitched to most of the world as the bad guy in that. My judgment is nothing could be further from the truth. 

Israel has simply wanted to live as a sovereign, independent nation. It’s made many offers. The Palestinian Authority rejected them for decades. I think that has worn on a certain piece of the intelligentsia, the American left and some pockets on the right for sure. Some of it’s rooted in antisemitism, almost certainly. Some of it’s rooted in that it’s popular. It’s cool on a campus because the faculty is all talking about the genocidal horrors inflicted by Israel, which, I mean, it’s just patently false. I think each of those things contribute to it. 

My prayer and my hope is, and I think this will prove to be true, that in the end, decent people who are part of Western civilization can identify evil from good, and will see the difference between the two. They may not like a particular strike that the United States takes somewhere where innocent civilians are killed — it’s true, as collateral [damage], it happens — but they will be able to see the difference between genocidal intent, that is driven by the Iranian regime around the world, and a desire for peace, which is driven by nations like the United States and Israel. 

That means those of us who see it that way have a duty to try and articulate it, to explain it, to be relentless in articulating why that’s true, not to call people names, not to mock them, but rather to make the arguments, to use reason to convince them of reality and of the truth about what’s really taking place there. I pray one day that the bad guys will lay down their weapons, because the moment they do, the reality will be before us all. There will be peace.

JI: Staying on politics, there’s a lot of trepidation from Republicans on Capitol Hill about how the November midterms are going to play out. Do you share that concern?

Pompeo: Having served in Congress, having been elected four times, I’m always mindful that this conversation isn’t that important. What’s really important is that you work your tail off, and you, the candidates, have the first responsibility, and the rest of us try our best to help them. 

It is the case, I think, that there’s a lot of energy in the progressive movement on the left today. I think that energy is there that sometimes has been more on our side. When I got elected in 2010, we had 74 brand new Republicans in districts we hadn’t won in years and years, so there was more energy. I think the next six months require us to go build that energy. If we build that energy, I think we’ll do better than the mean.

 These midterms are always tough for the party that’s in control. No reason to think that historical change will take place, but if you work hard and tell a story properly, which is that these conservative ideas will deliver better outcomes for America, then we’ll do better than I think some of the fearmongers are predicting. 

JI: Do you worry about the situation in the Middle East hurting Republicans in November? 

Pompeo: You’ve seen that already. You’ve seen Sen. [Chris] Murphy (D-CT) do this. You’ve seen Sen. [Bernie] Sanders (I-VT) do this. They’re already trying to say: ‘This was a war of choice. President Trump failed. This is a disaster. Look how expensive gasoline is.’ So yes, this will be part of the political conversation, but that just means you have to go and articulate the why of this. 

I know how people are struggling, and I feel bad when I see gas prices high for everybody too, especially the least amongst us, but I’d remind them we just have lived in this false state for so long where we thought we could just ignore this problem when it had to be solved. If the price of that, of solving that and keeping Americans for decades to come from Iran with a nuclear weapon, then to pay a little bit more at the gas pump for a little while is an acceptable cost, in my view. 

I think most Americans actually get that, and they just need to understand the why and the how. When explained, I think they’ll come to the same conclusion I do, that this was a noble and important decision that President Trump made, and that it is, in the long run, better for them and their children and their grandchildren. We [Republicans] shouldn’t play politics with it either, because this is about national security, but we should articulate the rationale for why this is the best outcome for every American, Democrat and Republican alike.

JI: How are you looking at the 2028 Republican presidential bench? Do you see yourself being a part of that race?

Pompeo: It’s gonna be a donnybrook on both sides. I think there will be lots of candidates who present themselves, and I love that. As for what comes for the Pompeo family next, only the good Lord knows. We’ll see. I have a brand new grandson, I’m loving life, but we’ll see. 

But I will say something that I do think is really important about the 2028 election. I hope it’s fought over important issues in a rational way. I hope the progressives show up and make their best arguments to the American people, and that the center-left and center-right do the same, and the MAGA folks and the right wing, just everybody don’t do memes, don’t tell fibs, don’t think, ‘Gosh, I was really good. I owned a lib on X.’ That might bring a sugar high, but what it doesn’t do is really deliver for the American people. I hope the campaign will turn out to be about things that really matter and be discussed in a serious way, and if so, I always have confidence the American people will get it right.

JI: What are the next steps for you in your career? 

Pompeo: I’m back in the business world. It’s what I did for most of my life, before I ran for Congress. I’m involved with a private equity firm. I’m helping a couple other businesses as a board member, back in the capitalist mode, and that’s great because there’s lots of risk but lots of joy. … I’m keeping my hand in the policy space too. I teach at Columbia University and at Liberty University, two very different institutions, and I love them both, each in their own way. Then I’m trying to help some candidates be successful in these midterm elections as well.

JI: We’ve covered Columbia closely at JI since Oct. 7, and it’s notable for them to have a voice like yours join their faculty. On that front, what’s your take on the lack of campus protests or encampments against the Iranian regime? We’re not seeing the same type of protests we saw against Israel taking place against Iran.

Pompeo: It’s a great question. It got out of control because of failed leadership. The institution’s leaders failed those students. They didn’t keep the students safe. They didn’t set the correct boundaries. 

We all want to protect First Amendment freedoms. That’s what college is about. Knock yourself out. You can say crazy stuff, but you can’t threaten and you can’t put other students at risk, and you can’t blockade classrooms so the students can’t enter. That’s just functionally terrible leadership.

I think what you’re seeing is some of these institutions have begun to get back the correct leadership, and I think they’ve actually done it in a way where more voices can be heard. 

I was at another liberal campus a few weeks back, and some of the conservative students were still saying to me that they felt like it was still difficult to speak up in class, and that the faculty was, they didn’t use the word oppressive, but they felt the faculty was difficult. I hope that veil will be lifted, and I hope those students and all students that have different views will all feel comfortable saying, ‘Here’s what I think, and here’s why I think that.’ Then somebody will challenge them and say, ‘Well, have you thought about X or Y,’ or ‘I see it differently.’ That’s what these institutions are all about. It’s what Columbia was when it was at its finest. That’s what Harvard and Dartmouth and Liberty all should aspire to.

👋 Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at deepening concerns among Jewish Democrats over the party’s increasing embrace of terror supporters and antisemitism, and report on recent polling from Israel that indicates a divide in public opinion over the Trump administration-brokered recent ceasefires with Iran and Lebanon. We cover the weekend’s Alex Soros-backed inaugural Global Progressive Summit in Barcelona, and break down the results of last week’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, where progressive Analilia Mejia sailed to victory, despite a lack of support from some of the district’s most Jewish areas. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Raz Hershko and Luke Lindberg.

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 is expected to return to Islamabad, Pakistan, this week for a second round of talks with senior Iranian officials amid conflicting reports over the status of the talks, with Iran saying it has not yet decided whether it will send representatives to the negotiations.
• Meanwhile, Tehran threatened retaliation this morning for the U.S.’ weekend attack on and seizure of an Iranian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman that had attempted to evade the Navy’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Argentine President Javier Milei is in Israel today after arriving over the weekend ahead of events around Israel’s Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut, the country’s back-to-back commemorations of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, and its Independence Day. Yesterday, Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the Isaac Accords between the two countries. Read more about the initiative here.
• Israel will hold official Yom HaZikaron events at the Western Wall this evening and at Mt. Herzl, the country’s military cemetery, tomorrow morning.
• In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will speak this morning at a State Department ceremony unveiling the portrait of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Events in recent days may well be marking a tipping point in the decline of the Democratic Party — at least when it comes to its treatment of Jews, on top of its growing hostility toward Israel.

The weekend ended with the news that Michigan Democratic delegates, at their statewide convention Sunday, nominated a Hezbollah supporter, Amir Makled, to the University of Michigan Board of Regents, choosing to oust a Jewish member, Jordan Acker, whose home and car were repeatedly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and his family threatened.

Acker’s offenses? He backed efforts to hold anti-Israel campus protesters at the University of Michigan accountable for assaulting police and engaging in intimidation of Jewish students, among other instances of student misconduct. He declined to support efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, as a radical faction of students had demanded. 

Acker’s non-Jewish Democratic ticketmate, Paul Brown, who also supported discipline against anti-Israel students, wasn’t targeted and was renominated for election. But the Democratic delegates ousted Acker in exchange for Makled, who has posted on social media with comments praising Hezbollah’s leaders and retweeted antisemitic messages from the conspiracy-theorizing influencer Candace Owens. 

The results mark a new low for Michigan Democrats. Also over the weekend, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas. Read more here.

In the same interview, El-Sayed also said that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the Democratic leader in the upper chamber, citing Schumer’s continued support for U.S. aid to Israel. Van Hollen is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the Senate. 

Michigan is a closely watched bellwether of the direction of the Democratic Party, and the latest developments underscore that a more radical faction of the party appears to be growing. This, in the state where dozens of Jewish preschoolers were nearly killed in a terrorist attack last month by a Hezbollah sympathizer who targeted the state’s largest synagogue.

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

dem defections

In New Jersey election results, signs of defections among Jewish Democrats

Rep.-elect Analilia Mejia (D-NJ) cruised to victory in last Thursday’s special election for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, but the results showed notable defections among Jewish Democrats — an early warning sign for both the left-wing Mejia and her party, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

By the numbers: Mejia ran significantly behind other recent Democratic candidates in two municipalities that have traditionally strongly favored Democrats — Livingston Township and Millburn Township — both areas with significant Jewish populations. In Millburn, Mejia lagged 22 percentage points behind former Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance in the 2024 presidential election, and 17 percentage points behind Harris in Livingston.

Read the full story here.

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SPEAKING OUT

John Fetterman blasts party for tolerating antisemitism within its ranks

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Friday that the Democratic Party “absolutely” has an issue with rising antisemitism, calling out the party’s embrace of candidates including Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan while criticizing the recent progressive push to cut off defensive aid to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

What he said: The Pennsylvania senator made the comments after being asked on CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt” if he believed the Democratic Party has a problem with antisemitism. Fetterman argued that the growing support for both candidates in their respective primaries was indicative of a tolerance for antisemitism within the party. “I mean, the guy that’s going to win the primary in Maine has a Nazi tattoo on his chest and now that’s no problem for a lot of voters,” Fetterman said. 

Read the full story here.

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IDENTITY CRISIS

Yehuda Kurtzer calls on American Jews to embrace reality of ‘political homelessness’

Amid a surge in antisemitism across the political spectrum, many American Jews have described feeling a growing sense of isolation. But for Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, being “politically homeless” is not a crisis to be solved, but rather a position to be embraced, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

A different perspective: “I don’t think some measure of political homelessness is a fundamentally bad thing,” Kurtzer said on Thursday while speaking alongside Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. “I think Americans have become hyper-partisan in ways that reflect that partisan political identity has become part of our identities in ways that are not healthy for Americans.” Kurtzer and Goldberg sat in conversation at an event focused on American Jewry ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

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the view from israel

Ceasefires deepen Israeli divisions over Trump’s handling of war

A weekend of diplomatic turbulence has deepened fault lines in Israel over the ceasefires in Lebanon and Iran, with public opinion split along political lines over whether President Donald Trump is serving Israeli interests — or overriding them. Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, before any known progress had been made in talks between Jerusalem and Beirut toward dismantling Hezbollah, already made waves in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

Tough talk: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that “we have not yet finished the job,” but said Israel was “provid[ing] an opportunity to advance an integrated diplomatic and military solution with the Lebanese government,” at Trump’s request. Within an hour of the release of Netanyahu’s statement, Trump published a Truth Social post in which he “PROHIBITED” Israel from continuing to bomb Hezbollah targets, adding: “Enough is enough!!!” Shira Efron, a senior fellow at RAND who serves as the think tank’s distinguished chair for Israel policy, told JI that “there is no question that the tone – ‘prohibited’ in upper case, ‘enough is enough’ – struck a sensitive note in Israel, and people are talking about a vassal state.” 

Read the full story here.

Under pressure: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a moderate Republican and co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, introduced a war powers resolution on Thursday that aims to enforce the deadlines for the war in Iran laid out in the 1973 War Powers Act, breaking with all Republicans except Thomas Massie (R-KY) JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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ENVOY SPOTLIGHT

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack faces renewed condemnation for anti-Israel, pro-Ankara comments

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack faced fresh condemnation from two Senate Republicans and conservative influencers for a series of comments he made at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey this weekend in which he repeatedly criticized Israel and praised Ankara, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Hezbollah hiccups: To comments by Barrack claiming that the current ceasefire in Lebanon “is so delicate because everybody has been equally untrustworthy” — referring to both Israel and Hezbollah — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he “respectfully and strongly disagree[s].” Barrack said at the conference there needs to be “a path with Hezbollah, and that path has to be not killing Hezbollah.” He further dismissed the idea that the Lebanese Armed Forces would act to disarm Hezbollah, as is required under the terms of the current and past ceasefires. “I always get in trouble because Hezbollah, in American parlance, and most of the West, is a foreign terrorist organization. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, is also a political organization,” Barrack added.

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UNITING THE GLOBAL LEFT

Chorus of anti-Israel voices gathers at Alex Soros summit in Spain

A range of Israel critics, from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) to Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, were among those gathered in Barcelona, Spain, over the weekend for the inaugural Global Progressive Summit, backed by left-wing philanthropist Alex Soros. The conference brought together representatives from over 40 countries, offering, according to its website, “a necessary alternative to conservative and far-right forces,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

In attendance:  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Israel who called on Saturday to downgrade EU-Israel relations, hosted the two-day conference, whose American attendees also included Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with Soros. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent video messages. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government petitioned the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli leaders, Brazilian President Lula de Silva and U.K. Justice Secretary David Lammy were also in attendance.

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Worthy Reads

Dumb and Dumber: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg explores the expanding platforms of influencers and public figures who are uneducated on the issues about which they speak and unchallenged by interviewers. “Talking with Piker about a political coalition to save American democracy without discussing his affinity for China’s rulers is like teaming up with Carlson without interrogating his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin — or with Donald Trump without examining his outlook toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And yet, only the debate over the latter tends to happen, such that Israel crowds out all other considerations, including extremely consequential beliefs that can end up going unchallenged.” [TheAtlantic]

It’s All Relative: In The Washington Post, the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka raises concerns about the presence of relatives of officials from American adversaries who are living in the U.S., amid an effort to deport some of those family members. “The U.S. is littered with other nepo babies, wives and cousins — what the Iranians and Arabs call aghazadeh and the Russians call mazhor — enjoying the privileges of living in the land of the free, often made possible by the ill-gotten gains of the fam back home. It’s little wonder why they came. … It turns out the easiest route is through higher education, with some institutions explaining outright how F-1 student visa holders can transfer to permanent status upon graduating.” [WashPost]

Dropping the Trump Name: The New York Times’ Eric Lipton spotlights an effort by the wealthy Khayyat family in Syria to influence U.S. foreign policy in Syria through the Trump family’s business dealings. “Such a mixing of personal and diplomatic affairs has long been the norm in Middle Eastern nations, where a small set of players have historically run, and profited from, their dominant role in society. But it has become the way Washington operates in Mr. Trump’s second term, too. … [A friend of Mohamad Al-Khayyat, Syrian American businessman Tarek] Naemo, who is based in Florida and runs an investment firm that he said had done deals with partners including the Qatari Investment Authority, began with his wife to court at least a dozen members of Congress, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson.” [NYTimes]

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump nominated Under Secretary of Agriculture Luke Lindberg to serve as the next head of the World Food Program, following Cindy McCain’s announced departure from the role over health issues…

The New York Times looks at divisions within the conservative campus movement in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, finding that members of some campus chapters and breakaway groups are split “over support for Israel, the showcasing of conspiracy theorists and who is rightfully American,” as well as disagreements over the war against Iran…

Buckley Carlson, the son of Tucker Carlson, departed his role as deputy press secretary to Vice President JD Vance to start his own consulting firm…

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was spotted with Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris as the 76ers took on the Boston Celtics in Massachusetts over the weekend…

Authorities in Los Angeles arrested an Iranian woman with permanent U.S. residency status accused of brokering sales of Iranian weapons to the Sudanese Armed Forces for use in the African country’s yearslong civil war…

A George Washington University alumna is suing the school and her former employer, Ernst & Young, as well as a number of GWU officials, alleging that she faced retaliation and discrimination in the wake of an address she delivered at one of the school’s 2025 commencement ceremonies; her remarks calling for GWU to divest from Israel deviated from those approved by the school…

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student who was detained for more than a month by immigration officials for co-authoring an op-ed critical of Israel, is returning to Turkey, having completed her Ph.D. studies at the Boston-area school…

The New York Times reviews When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s account, which will be released tomorrow, of her life before and after the 2024 death of her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, at the hands of his Hamas captors…

Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, with the backing of more than 80 Jewish groups, is calling on the federal government in Ottawa to increase funding to address “rising security demands” as the country sees a sharp increase in antisemitism…

A French peacekeeper was killed and three others members of UNIFIL, the U.N.’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon, were injured in what France and UNIFIL said was a Hezbollah attack; French President Emmanuel Macron, whose government was sidelined from recent U.S.-brokered talks between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington, called on Beirut to “immediately arrest those responsible and assume their responsibilities alongside UNIFIL”…

An appeals court in France ruled than an Algerian-born nanny who worked for a French Jewish family was not acting out of antisemitism when she poisoned family members, despite having told police, “Because they have money and power, I should never have worked for a Jewish woman; she only brought me trouble”; the woman was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, less than if she was found to have been motivated by antisemitism…

Kanye West’s upcoming concert in Poland, which was slated to take place in June, was called off by organizers, one of whom cited “formal and legal reasons,” weeks after West’s planned concerts in France and the U.K. were also cancelled amid public outcries over his past antisemitic comments… 

Helen Mirren, Skylar Astin and Liev Schreiber were among more than 1,000 signatories to an open letter organized by Creative Community for Peace in support of Israel’s continued participation in the Eurovision Song Contest…

U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis decried the “sustained campaign of violence and intimidation” targeting British Jews amid a series of attacks on Jewish communities around the country…

Mirvis’ statement came shortly before the arrest of two teenagers in connection with an arson attack that caused minor damage to London’s Kenton United Synagogue; British authorities are investigating whether the recent spate of attacks targeting Jewish sites in the country is linked to Iran…

A British court rejected an effort by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians to issue a summons for a dual U.K.-Israeli citizen who traveled to Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, to rejoin his unit as a reservist in the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks the day prior…

Sixteen Arab and Muslim countries — including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, but excluding Abraham Accords signatories the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain — signed onto a Qatar-led statement condemning Israel for appointing former Israeli Ambassador to Kenya Michael Lotem as the country’s first ambassador to Somaliland, four months after Jerusalem recognized the African state…

The New York Times explores the impact of the war in Iran on Qatar and other U.S.-allied Gulf nations, finding Doha [t]rapped between their chief ally and their neighbor” and now being “forced to rethink their security strategies”…

The UAE’s minister of state for international cooperation said that 90% of the sites struck in the Gulf nation by Iran over the course of the recent conflict were civilian infrastructure; Reem Al Hashimy said that approximately 2,800 missiles and drones launched by Iran had hit targets in the UAE…

The governor of the UAE’s central bank, who met last week in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, introduced the possibility of working with Washington to create a currency-swap line as a potential financial backstop should the Gulf state face further economic challenges…

Iran said it executed two people alleged to have collaborated with Israel’s Mossad…

The IDF released a map showing the Lebanese territory under its control as it fights against Hezbollah in the southern part of the country…

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the military was conducting an investigation following the surfacing of a photo in which an IDF soldier is pictured desecrating a statue of Jesus in the southern Lebanese Christian village; Israeli Prime Minister condemned the incident, saying he “was stunned and saddened” and that Israel “express[es] regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world”…

Senior Hamas officials confirmed to The New York Times that the terror group was willing to relinquish some of its weapons to the Palestinian administrative committee operating under the Trump administration’s Board of Peace…

Israeli Olympic silver medalist Raz Hershko won gold in her weight class at the European Judo Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia…

Pic of the Day

Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, hosted a reading on Sunday of Israel’s Declaration of Independence at the egalitarian section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Hess was joined by members of the Sydney Jewish community as well as former Israeli hostage Shoshan Haran.

Birthdays

Israeli model, swimwear designer and social media star, Neta Alchimister turns 32… 

Stanford University professor and 2020 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Paul Robert Milgrom turns 78… Chairman of the media networks division of Activision Blizzard, he previously held high-ranking roles at NFL Network, ESPN and ABC, Steve Bornstein turns 74… Philadelphia-based development professional, currently at AJC after a long career for a number of organizations, Andrew Demchick turns 70… Immigrants rights activist and professor at Salem State University, she is the eldest daughter of Noam Chomsky, Aviva Chomsky turns 69… Television and radio host, syndicated columnist and political commentator, Steve Malzberg turns 67… Past president and executive director of the D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, now at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, Marc Rotenberg turns 66… Author, journalist and former co-host of “The Femsplainers Podcast,” Danielle Crittenden Frum turns 63… Semi-professional race car driver and restaurateur, he was previously CEO, president and chairman of the Trust Company of New Jersey, Alan Wilzig turns 61… Television producer and game show host, known professionally as J.D. Roth, James David Weinroth turns 58… Israeli jazz bassist, composer, singer and arranger, Avishai Cohen turns 56… British film director, Sarah Gavron turns 56… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of four Jewish Republican congressmen, Randy Fine (R-FL) turns 52… VP of government and public affairs at Cleveland-based GBX Group, a historic real estate development firm, Seth Foster Unger… Deputy associate administrator at the General Services Administration, Michael C. Frohlich… Chief philanthropy and leadership officer at the World Jewish Congress, Elliott G. Mendes… President and CEO at the Los Angeles-based Skirball Cultural Center, Jessie Kornberg turns 44… Former general manager of Bird in Israel, he is a nephew of Israel’s past president Reuven Rivlin, Yaniv Rivlin… ESPN sportscaster and former Fox Sports and NFL Network personality, Peter Schrager turns 44… New York-based national security and human rights lawyer, Irina Tsukerman… Co-founder of The Free Press and its head of strategy, Nellie Bowles turns 38… PM breaking news editor at CNN Politics, Kyle Feldscher… Policy advisor and counsel to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), Zachary L. Baum… Systems engineer at Google X, Joseph Gettinger turns 38… Facilitator, coach and workshop organizer, Daniela Kate Plattner… Research analyst at the U.S. Department of State during the Biden administration, David Mariutto… VP at Cedar Capital Partners, Alex Berman… CEO of Social Lite Creative and news anchor on ILTV, Emily K. Schrader… Israeli scientist, engineer and artificial intelligence researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Maor Farid turns 34… Working on advertising platforms at Apple, McKenna Klein… Senior associate at LvlUp Ventures, Andrew J. Hirsh… R&B, soul, pop singer and teen actress, at 13 she was the runner-up on the second season of “The X Factor,” Carly Rose Sonenclar turns 27… Diane Kahan… 

The Trump administration official leading a controversial probe into antisemitism at the University of Pennsylvania told Jewish leaders and legal experts on Thursday that compiling a list of Jewish faculty with their detailed personal information was necessary to identify and protect victims. 

“There is no other way to protect victims of harassment or discrimination unless you collect information about them,” Andrea Lucas, chair of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law’s inaugural conference on antisemitism and civil rights law, held at Harvard University. 

“We never collect information to contact someone on their work system,” she said. “The EEOC’s long-standing practice is to collect personal information because we want to make sure that there is not any clear monitoring of your email systems … that when you speak to a government agency you feel completely not pressured.” 

Last month, a federal judge ordered Penn to comply with a subpoena from the Trump administration requesting detailed information about Jewish university affiliates as part of the EEOC’s ongoing investigation into Penn’s handling of antisemitism. The subpoena had requested the school turn over lists of Jewish employees and members of Jewish organizations — including their identifying details and phone numbers — which the school called “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” Critics on campus have likened the move to Nazi-era methods of collecting information about Jews. 

During a fireside chat with Kenneth Marcus, founder of the Brandeis Center and former assistant secretary of education for civil rights under the first Trump administration, Lucas noted she was speaking generally and not about the Penn case specifically, as litigation is ongoing.

“At some point, either the government will know information related to individuals’ religion, or we will not be able to enforce the laws on their behalf,” continued Lucas, who is not Jewish but emphasized a personal interest in religious liberty as “a core thing the EEOC needs to be focusing on.” 

“I understand the sensitivities around this issue … but fundamentally the Jewish community does have to decide: do you want to have civil rights enforcement in this space? If you do, there is no other way we can get money for victims.” 

Experts told Jewish Insider in January that a more typical investigation might involve agency officials interviewing people who issued complaints directly with the agency, then visiting the campus and publicizing their investigation, calling the EEOC’s methods in the Penn case “incredibly unusual, if not completely unprecedented.”

Lucas asserted that the same standard applied for helping members of any race, religion or gender. None of the event’s speakers publicly disagreed with Lucas’ statements. 

The daylong conference was born out of last year’s settlement between the Brandeis Center and Harvard over a Title VI lawsuit, and was framed around this year’s U.S. Semiquincentennial.

It opened with an address from Marcus and a benediction from Harvard Chabad’s Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi. Attendees included Harvard community members, Jewish activists, lawyers and scholars.

The plenary session, “Towards a Jewish Civil Rights Movement,” moderated by Marcus, featured William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Elan Carr, CEO of Israeli-American Council and former special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; and Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network. 

Carr called the battle against antisemitism “a war for the soul of America and the soul of civilization,” and advocated for a shift in classroom curriculums and federal funding.

“Jew-hatred is history’s greatest barometer of human ruin and suffering. We are fighting for the future of our country and American values. So we need to get serious about teaching American values … we can’t safeguard this republic unless we teach American kids what this republic is, why it was founded, what our values are and constitutional structures are,” he said. “This is a national crisis with national implications. The federal government needs to say ‘no money goes anywhere to any educational institution unless there’s Western values, American civics, basic principles of the United States as part of the curriculum.’” 

After the session, Daroff told JI that “today’s conference brought a united American Jewish community together, aligned in action. We are not standing back. We are organizing, building and acting together with shared purpose and resolve.”

The conference also featured a panel titled “Defining Anti-Semitism at America’s 250th: New Challenges for a New Century.” Speakers debated the importance of pushing states to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, as many mainstream Jewish groups are using resources to do. Critics of IHRA say the definition chills political speech and criticism of Israel.

Nathan Diament, executive director for the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, said that IHRA is not only important for combating campus antisemitism — as several of the speakers emphasized —  but also regarding legislation in Washington. 

At the same time, “in the political arena, vagueness around questions [of what is antisemitism] is unhelpful. The most important currency in politics is votes. Advocates and voters need to be able to say with clarity to politicians [what they will and will not support]. This is the most important need for the definition of antisemitism, to draw a line as clearly as we can and make clear to politicians that if they cross this line, there will be consequences,” said Diament. 

“Even as the OU has, and continues to, support legislation to codify the IHRA definition, I don’t think at this stage in the game that’s the most important way to further the definition and to use our political capital,” he continued. “We don’t need Congress’ approval of how we want to define antisemitism. We don’t need them to codify it and we don’t need them to give us permission to use it to hold members of Congress and other politicians accountable. We can use the IHRA definition because we say that’s the definition.”

Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement and former president of the Brandeis Center, pushed back by highlighting how the law enforcement trainings she provides varies based on local adoption of the IHRA definition. She noted a stark difference between training in states where it is codified, such as Georgia, and those where it is not, such as New York. 

Law enforcement in Georgia “has a very concrete reason now to understand and use” the training, said Lewin. “In New York, especially after [Mayor Zohran Mamdani] reversed the executive order on IHRA, I can try to explain it to them but it’s just a nice thing I teach them. They are under no obligation to actually engage with it and utilize it. So I do think on a state by state level, it does make a difference whether or not a state has adopted the IHRA definition.” 

In a separate panel, moderated by Anat Alon-Beck, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, speakers explored new avenues for litigation against antisemitism. 

“Nearly two years after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the Jewish community still lacks unified messaging, coordinated toolkits and a clear strategy. At a time when antisemitic actors are highly organized and aligned, our disunity is a serious vulnerability,” Alon-Beck told JI following her session. “We need to come together — with clarity, courage and coordination — because the stakes could not be higher.” 

According to the Brandeis Center, this conference was the first in an annual three-part series. 

Charles Dabda, a third-year student at Touro Law Center and law clerk with National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JI he was leaving the conference with a clear sense that “antisemitism is rising in real time with real consequences across campuses, professional spaces and beyond. At the Brandeis Center, and NJAC, our commitment remains resolute and steadfast; we will confront antisemitism wherever it manifests — through advocacy, and, when necessary, the courtroom.”

Heckled over Gaza at a Turning Point USA event on Tuesday evening, Vice President JD Vance claimed that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza was an absolute catastrophe” when Trump returned to office last January and criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict, though he did not defend Israel against the attack. 

An attendee at the event at the University of Georgia repeatedly shouted that the Trump administration was supporting “genocide” in Gaza by backing Israel’s war against Hamas.

“You know who’s the person who got a peace agreement in Gaza? Donald J. Trump,” Vance told the heckler. “So if you want to complain about what happened in Gaza, why don’t you complain about Joe Biden and the last administration? We’re the administration that solved that problem.”

“Right now, you see more humanitarian aid coming into Gaza than … any time in the past five years because we have taken that situation seriously,” he continued. “That’s one of the things I’m proud of about our administration, whether it’s there or Thailand and Cambodia, we have consistently tried as much as we can to solve these problems.”

Vance also revealed at the event that Theo Von was one of his favorite podcasters and recommended young people listen to his show — despite the influencer’s record of anti-Israel and antisemitic comments.

Vance made the comments after being asked by a child in the audience during a question and answer period who he looked up to in the conservative movement when he was growing up and which current “influencers” he’d recommend young people listen to. 

The vice president responded by pointing to James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, an Evangelical organization aimed at promoting traditional conservative family policies, as an early influence in his life, and encouraged young people to listen to Von, himself and the current hosts of the Charlie Kirk Podcast.

Von has made a series of antisemitic and anti-Israel statements in recent years on his and other podcasts. He claimed to Joe Rogan in a November 2024 appearance on his podcast that Jews control liberal media and “hate White guys.” He referred to neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes as “f***ing brave” during a January episode of his podcast alongside anti-Israel comedian Dave Smith, and warned Israel not to kill him while saying he was “not suicidal” last October amid reports about concerns for his mental health. 

Vance has appeared on Von’s podcast before, sitting down for an interview last June where he defended Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza after Von described it as a “genocide.” Trump also appeared on Von’s podcast in August 2024, during his presidential campaign. In May last year, the White House took Von to speak to U.S. troops at a military base in Qatar, ahead of Trump’s address.

The vice president emphasized his support at another point during the event for continuing to engage with Iranian leadership to reach a negotiated settlement to end the fighting and reshape the two countries’ relationship, and said he was going to keep working toward that outcome. Vance said while detailing the status of negotiations between Washington and Tehran that the U.S. has not agreed to a diplomatic settlement to end the conflict because President Donald Trump “really wants a deal where Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.”

“Fundamentally, the president set a policy: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and right now we are negotiating to make sure that very thing happens,” Vance said. 

Trump, Vance argued, “doesn’t want to make … a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain. And what he’s basically offering to Iran is very simple, and frankly, it’s something that no president, I think, has had the ability to offer. He said that, ‘if you’re willing to act like a normal country, we are willing to treat you economically like a normal country.’”

The comments came following reports that U.S. negotiators asked Iran to agree to not enrich uranium for 20 years as part of a peace deal, which Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday he was displeased about. 

“I’ve been saying they can’t have nuclear weapons, so I don’t like the 20 years,” Trump told the outlet. 

Vance described the president’s offer to improve the U.S.-Iran relationship in exchange for the regime committing to abandoning its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons as a “Trumpian grand bargain” that he was “going to keep on negotiating” toward. 

“What’s interesting about this is that we have this ceasefire that’s in place, I think it’s six or seven days old right now. The ceasefire is holding,” Vance said. “And that’s one of the reasons why I’d say, in Pakistan, we made a ton of progress,” he added, referring to his direct talks with Iranian leadership over the weekend.

“The United States had never had meetings at that level with the Iranian government in 49 years, like it’s a meeting that had never before happened, not Democrat, not Republican,” he continued. 

Tuesday’s event was originally supposed to feature a conversation between the vice president and Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk and his successor as TPUSA’s CEO. Kirk pulled out of appearing at the event late Tuesday after her security team advised her against appearing due to “very serious threats.” Since her husband’s assassination last September, Kirk has been targeted by far-right conspiracy theorists, led by Candace Owens, claiming that she was involved in the assassination of her husband. 

Vance condemned those criticizing Kirk but did not call out Owens or others by name, telling the crowd, “Everybody is attacking her over everything, and they’re lying about her, and it’s one of the most disgraceful things that I’ve ever seen in public life, and I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in my life.”

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. 

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.

The budget request affirms President Donald Trump’s previously stated desire for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027 — a $441 billion increase over 2026 funding levels.

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.

The request does not specifically spell out how NSGP funding would be impacted, but states broadly that the budget “reduces wasteful FEMA grant programs, refocusing the agency on sound emergency management while encouraging States and communities to build resilience and use their unique local knowledge and resources in disaster response.”

The budget document does specifically lambast 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, charged with helping to mediate communal conflicts based on various forms of hatred and discrimination. It describes the program as a “woke [enterprise] that fails to serve the core function of the Department to fight crime and protect American communities.”

Lawmakers ultimately rejected efforts to fully defund CRS last year, though they did cut $4 million from the office’s budget.

“CRS has a long track record of supporting fringe leftist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and legitimizing riotous behavior that puts America’s police in the crosshairs,” the budget request continues.

The budget request also continues to push for the elimination of the Department of Education, though it doesn’t include a specific line item for the Office for Civil Rights, which is responsible for addressing, among other issues, antisemitism on college campuses. The administration had sought significant cuts to that office in 2026.

The administration called for $2.7 billion in cuts to the U.S.’ funding for international organizations including the United Nations, particularly taking aim at the United Nations regular budget and U.N. peacekeeping missions.

It specifically criticizes anti-Israel bias at the U.N.: The budget document states that the U.N. Human Rights Council and its commission of inquiry on Israel “has failed to uphold any semblance of impartiality or conduct objective investigations.”

The administration requested $15.2 million in additional funding for the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, “making key investments in critical cyber capabilities, sanctions targeting, and combating illicit financial activity” — with a focus on countering cartels.

More specific line-item requests should be released in the coming days.

A federal judge ordered the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to comply with a subpoena from the Trump administration requesting detailed information about Jewish university affiliates as part of the government’s crackdown on campus antisemitism.   

The decision follows a monthslong legal battle between Penn and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s over the EEOC’s authority to enforce the subpoena issued last July, which stemmed from an ongoing investigation into Penn’s handling of antisemitism. 

The EEOC sued Penn in November, saying it had failed to comply with the subpoena, which demands that the university turn over lists of Jewish employees and members of Jewish organizations — including their identifying details and phone numbers — saying the information is necessary for the agency to contact potential victims of antisemitism. 

The battle escalated in January when the Ivy League university issued a court filing calling the agency’s methods of investigating whether the school allowed an antisemitic work environment “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” 

Judge Gerald Pappert of Philadelphia’s Federal District Court ruled in Tuesday’s brief that “for their legal arguments, respondents contend the charge of discrimination is invalid and the subpoena violates the United States Constitution in various ways. But the charge is valid and the constitutional claims are easily dispensed with.”

Penn has until May 1 to respond to the subpoena, but will not have to “reveal any employee’s affiliation with a specific Jewish-related organization,” Pappert, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote in the 32-page ruling.

A Penn spokesperson told Jewish Insider that the university plans to appeal the ruling. “We remain committed to confronting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and have taken multiple steps to prevent and address these despicable events,” the spokesperson said. 

“While we acknowledge the important role of the EEOC to investigate discrimination, we also have an obligation to protect the rights of our employees. We continue to believe that requiring Penn to create lists of Jewish faculty and staff, and to provide personal contact information, raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns. The university does not maintain employee lists by religion. We intend to appeal.”

 An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment. 

Jewish groups on and off campus, including Hillel, Chabad, Meor and the local federation have asserted that the demands in the subpoena represent a significant overreach in the Trump administration’s nationwide campus investigations into alleged antisemitism. 

Turning over the information would disregard “the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university said in the January legal filing.   

Over the past year, the EEOC has played a key part in the Trump administration’s negotiations with several elite universities —- many of which have been related to antisemitism. In July, Penn reached a deal with the White House to restore some $175 million that was frozen over alleged discrimination of a transgender student athlete.

The Trump administration’s conflicting posturing on the war in Iran — insisting on the one hand that a diplomatic deal is within reach while also threatening to escalate strikes and potentially deploy ground troops — has left experts and former administration officials uncertain about President Donald Trump’s next move.

The president threatened in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday morning to “conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island” if current talks fall apart and “the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business.’”

But he wrote in the same post that the U.S. is engaging in “serious discussions” with Iran’s current leadership, which he described as a “new” and “more reasonable” regime than its predecessor, and said that “great progress has been made.”

Reached for comment, the White House referred Jewish Insider to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s remarks at Monday’s briefing where she defended the president’s approach and repeatedly stated that Trump and his advisors are merely ensuring he has “maximum optionality” as he considers next steps.

“With respect to forces that are on the ground in the Middle East, it’s the job of the Pentagon to create maximum optionality for the commander-in-chief. It does not mean the president has made any additional decisions,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump has “decline[d] to rule … out” the use of ground troops.  

On Capitol Hill, there are increasingly evident divides among Republican lawmakers about the prospect of boots on the ground. Some have argued that a ground operation would require explicit congressional authorization, and a number of otherwise-hawkish Republicans are hesitant about, if not outright opposed to, the idea of a ground operation.

In recent days, the U.S. has amassed over 3,500 more troops in the Middle East, including deploying the USS Tripoli aircraft carrier, which hosts around 2,500 Marines. Trump has also threatened to attack Iran’s oil and energy facilities and potentially escalate the war as a result of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital passageway for the global oil trade. 

Elliott Abrams, who served as Iran envoy under the first Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told JI that the president’s decision to move more troops to the region and not exclude ground operations from future military plans is an effort to “keep his options open.”

“The massing of ground forces near Iran is both preparation for their possible use and a means of pressuring Iran to make concessions in the negotiations,” Abrams said. “There is no way of knowing what Trump will do if the negotiations fail.”

The administration is considering multiple options for the use of ground troops, including the seizure of Kharg Island, a vital economic artery for Tehran that accounts for roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude exports. 

Cameron McMillan, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that targets could also include the “seizure of key terrain — including relevant islands — in and around the Strait of Hormuz and securing Iranian highly enriched uranium.” However, he remained unsure whether the Trump administration would carry out such operations. 

“Seizing or destroying the [highly enriched uranium] is a sensible goal if it is militarily feasible without too much risk,” Abrams said. “Taking the targets associated with the strait is, I think, both for bargaining purposes and perhaps meant to be given up only when traffic has moved through the strait freely for some time.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said that there are “real reasons to think ground operations could end up taking place.” He said that Iran “refuses to entertain Trump’s demands,” which could compel the administration to use elevated means of force in order to seize Iran’s highly enriched uranium, reopen the Strait of Hormuz or take Kharg Island “or other assets as bargaining chips.”

“The past month reaffirms that standoff air and naval power are insufficient by themselves to neutralize these targets or convince Iran to give them up,” Ruhe said. “Trump’s tendency is to employ the forces that he deploys overseas, as seen in both the Venezuela operation and the start of the current conflict. And there’s an opportunity cost to letting such well-trained U.S. forces idle indefinitely in the Middle East after pulling them from the Indo-Pacific or the homeland.”

Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama and deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under President Joe Biden, said current talks between Washington and Tehran “look like a negotiation going nowhere.” He argued that Trump’s track record of pivoting to military action when diplomacy stalls, along with pressure to decide whether to use forces that cannot remain in the region indefinitely, suggest that ground operations could be looming.

“There is little chance that Iran, despite all punishment it has taken from U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, will make these concessions … If the [current] negotiations falter, it’s not hard to guess which way [Trump] will go,” Shapiro said. 

Shapiro said that the current moment has a “similar feel to the military build-up Trump ordered throughout February” before he launched the war at the end of the month. Shapiro cautioned that any use of ground forces would indicate a “longer war” and signal that the objectives of the war are expanding “far beyond what negotiations in February were seeking to achieve.”

“With the ground forces available, they can’t just park in the region for long. Trump will, sooner than later, need to decide whether to use them or send them home,” Shapiro added. 

Meanwhile, McMillan cautioned against ground operations, “especially those designed to secure and hold terrain.”

“I do not see any value in employing these forces to seize Iranian territory and would highly caution against ground operations,” McMillan said. “All of the desired objectives — with the exception of securing highly enriched uranium — can be secured through other means with substantially less risk. Seizing tankers is the most obvious if [the administration] is seeking to cut off Iran’s oil revenue.” 

He also warned that the current forces being deployed might “not be enough for any large-scale ground operations for any long duration.” 

“Simply deploying these units is unlikely to leverage Iran at the negotiating table, as the regime is fighting a total war that it views as existential,” McMillan continued. “Considering the profound impacts of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and naval capabilities, as well as its senior leadership, it is unlikely that a few more American battalions in the region will change that view or their will to continue fighting.”

Ruhe noted that Trump could be overlooking the potential costs of ground operations. He said that the president “has not adequately anticipated Iran’s retaliation” and is “discounting the uncertainties and risks of rolling the iron dice with ground operations.”

“And even if Trump is clear-eyed about the risks, he may accept them because getting the highly enriched uranium [HEU] and reopening the strait are such important goals,” he continued. Ruhe noted that such operations would likely be very complex. 

“Seizing Iran’s HEU at Isfahan, Kharg Island or beachheads along the strait would be larger and more open-ended than raids on Maduro, al-Baghdadi or Bin Laden, which were in-and-out and occurred in much more tactically permissive environments,” Ruhe said. “Though Iran is being hit hard, it still has much greater military capabilities than ISIS, Venezuela or the Taliban.”

McMillan said that ground operations could also provide Tehran with leverage and risk further expanding the conflict. He also noted that any ground operation designed to seize and hold terrain in Iran is “more likely to become a liability than an asset and would draw the Trump administration closer to the war of attrition that it is trying to avoid.”

“Instead of the U.S. securing leverage, Iran would likely gain significant leverage against the U.S. by being able to employ a greater part of its arsenal against a vulnerable and isolated U.S. troop presence,” McMillan said. “If those troops were to take consistent casualties against threats that could not be removed from the air alone, expanded ground operations in the name of force protection would not be hard to imagine. That would require more forces, more resources and, in turn, likely more casualties.” 

However, Richard Goldberg, a former Trump administration official, said that the use of ground operations does not necessarily signal that there will be an expanded presence and scope of U.S. involvement. 

“People hear ‘boots on the ground’ and immediately think of Iraq, but we had boots on the ground in Venezuela as well — just in a very different way,” Goldberg said. “The U.S. would not be invading Iran in the sense of Iraq, but you could see a number of contingencies that might require special forces, airborne or marines for narrowly scoped missions with limited objectives, whether that’s securing nuclear material or neutralizing a threat that you can’t neutralize from the air for a variety of reasons.”

“It’s also important to remember that the military is preparing for contingencies, which may or may not ever be needed,” Goldberg added, noting that the U.S. “had Marines off of Venezuela but we didn’t use them.”

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.

Extensive security “preparations, training and practice” that had taken place prior to an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this month “greatly helped to dramatically mitigate what could have been so much worse in Michigan,” a Trump administration intelligence official said on Tuesday. 

During a security briefing webinar hosted by the Secure Community Network, a leading Jewish security organization, ahead of the Passover holiday, Matthew Kozma, under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, called for continued vigilance “given the threat that’s stemming from Iran, particularly in the Middle East, but also here at home.” 

He said that Americans should remain cautious of threats from “malicious actors, particularly ones encouraged by or empathetic to Iran,” as two upcoming events in the country — the 2026 FIFA World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary — bring an influx of visitors into the U.S.

The briefing was held during what Michael Masters, CEO of SCN, described as “an elevated threat environment from Iran and its proxies,” ahead of the start of the Passover holiday next week.   

Since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran started nearly one month ago, Jewish institutions have seen a surge in attacks, including the one targeting Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. — one of the country’s largest Reform congregations — and three shootings outside of Toronto synagogues. 

​​Masters said SCN monitored over 8,000 direct calls for violence against the Jewish community in North America over a six-day period this month, marking a 137% increase over the average tracked and “the highest number we’ve ever tallied in that timeframe.”

Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who was on the scene following the Temple Israel attack, shared with attendees that he himself has been the target of death threats for supporting the Jewish community. 

Still, Bouchard doubled down on his support. “Something that I’ve said before, and I believe, is that if you target our Jewish community, we’re going to stand in front of them to protect them. And we’re coming for you.”  

The briefing concluded with Eric Fingerhut, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America,  calling for “more resources at this time.”

“Temple Israel was one of the best, most secured buildings, having spent a significant amount of money of their dues budget and of their donors’ budgets on security, and yet we need additional levels of security,” Fingerhut said. “Our federations are committed to generating those additional resources, bringing those resources to our communities. But in addition, I have to mention that it’s the government’s responsibility, first and foremost, to protect its citizens in their places of worship, in their places of communal gathering.” 

Last week, in a letter to the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee, a bipartisan group of 150 House members asked the committee to provide $1 billion in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2027, a massive expansion of the program that marks the first time lawmakers’ request aligns with the $1 billion that some Jewish groups have been advocating for. The program received $274.5 million in funding in 2025, but that funding has still not been distributed, according to the letter, which cited delays at FEMA, and lawmakers have not been provided customary data about supplemental funding rounds awarded last year.

“We need more resources and support from the government,” continued Fingerhut, who announced that JFNA will hold an advocacy fly-in in Washington in mid-May.

“We will be visiting every member of Congress, asking them for their support. We’ll be visiting the members of the administration, as well … to make sure that [they] know that every one of us has the right in this country to practice our faith and to gather together as a community in safety and security.” 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) lambasted the Trump administration for lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil last week, allowing the sale of 140 million barrels of oil currently at sea in a bid to bring down oil prices globally and potentially netting Iran $14 billion.

Lawmakers in both chambers, on a bipartisan basis, have spent years working to increase financial pressure on Iran, with broad support. Those efforts have been ongoing, including as recently as last week when the House passed the Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act by a bipartisan voice vote — in spite of concerns from the White House about sanctioning China, which predated the war, that delayed and watered down the bill.

“The irony is, we worked so hard to get those sanctions imposed and Republicans pushed so diligently, and now literally in the flick of a pen, [President Donald] Trump lifts them with very little benefit to consumers in America and tremendous boost to Iran and Russia, both of them trying to kill our troops and saying ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel,’” Blumenthal told Jewish Insider.

The administration had previously waived sanctions on Russian oil, which were designed to to pressure the Russian government to end its invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this really, seemingly, stupid action,” Blumenthal continues.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) defended the move as an effort to bring down oil prices.

“What the president is trying to do is make sure that Americans aren’t seeing too high of gas prices at the pump,” Ricketts said.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said that he does not have an issue with the sanctions relief “as long as the money doesn’t go to Iran, then it makes sense.”

“I don’t think that the money was going to go to Iran,” Scott said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Sunday that the U.S. was “jiujitsuing the Iranians” and “using their own oil against them,” suggesting that by lowering global oil prices, Iran would ultimately make less money from its oil exports.

He also claimed the U.S. would track the transactions and block the funds involved from actually reaching Iran, though the license issued to allow the oil sales did not provide any such specific provisions or restrictions. The license also allowed the U.S. to import Iranian oil, for the first time in decades.

Off Capitol Hill, the decision has been met with puzzlement and skepticism from Iran hawks, some of whom have raised questions about the actual impact the sanctions relief will have on lowering global oil prices.

The Trump administration filed a new lawsuit against Harvard University on Friday, claiming that its leadership violated the civil rights of Jewish students by failing to address ongoing antisemitism that has roiled the Ivy League campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. 

In the 44-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, the Department of Justice said that Harvard unlawfully discriminated against Jewish students by its “intentional conduct and its deliberate indifference to discriminatory harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and creation of a hostile educational environment” since Oct. 7 and “up to the present day.” 

Jewish and Israeli students “were repeatedly denied access to educational facilities by antisemitic demonstrators. Fearful for their safety, Jewish students wore baseball caps to conceal their yarmulkes or kept out of sight, effectively denying them access to federally funded educational opportunities,” the lawsuit argues. 

It further claims that Harvard faculty and leadership’s response was to “turn a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.” 

The suit is seeking to recover millions of dollars in taxpayer funds that the school received as these alleged civil rights violations were ongoing.

The litigation marks the administration’s latest crackdown in its ongoing battle with several elite universities including Harvard, which have faced multibillion-dollar funding cuts since last year. The school sued the federal government over the funding freezes, and a federal judge ruled last September that the government violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and federal law when it froze nearly $2 billion in federal grants. The Trump administration filed an appeal in December 2025, which is ongoing. 

“Harvard University has failed to protect its Jewish students from harassment and has allowed discrimination to wreak havoc on its campus. President Trump is committed to ensuring every student can pursue their academic goals in a safe environment,” White House Regional Press Secretary Liz Huston said in a statement. 

In a statement to Jewish Insider, a Harvard spokesperson said, “Harvard cares deeply about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus. Our actions illustrate this. Harvard has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus … Harvard’s efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference.”

Since Oct. 7, Harvard has also faced legal action from Jewish groups. In May 2024, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a federal lawsuit claiming that students and faculty on campus have called for violence against Jews and celebrated Hamas’ terrorism daily as the university ignored harassment— including a physical assault — of Jewish students.  

The DOJ suit comes days after a new report was released by the university’s official Jewish alumni group that found Jewish enrollment at Harvard has fallen to roughly 7% — its lowest level since the pre-World War II era. 

A federal judge’s ruling this week that voided the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter Voice of America, restoring more than 1,000 journalists and other employees by Monday, is raising some hopes that the embattled international broadcaster funded by the federal government may now be able to ramp up its Persian-language coverage to reach Iranians at a crucial moment amid war with the U.S. and Israel. 

While VOA had resumed some of its Persian news broadcasting in recent months, it has been hobbled by a yearlong near shutdown ordered by the Trump administration that had reduced the organization to a skeletal staff — further battered by the tumultuous tenure of Kari Lake, who until recently served as the de facto leader of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the network.

In a separate ruling earlier this month, the judge ordered that Lake’s appointment as acting chief had been unlawful and nullified her aggressive moves to gut VOA. President Donald Trump last week nominated Sarah Rogers, a senior State Department official, to take over USAGM — a position that requires Senate confirmation which Lake never received. The Department of Justice has not confirmed if it will seek to appeal the latest ruling.

One USAGM source expressed optimism that the judge’s decisions would result in “more resources,” but cautioned that “there are still leadership issues” in the Persian service — once one of VOA’s largest divisions — stifling its ability to report exhaustively on news developments and offer coverage without the appearance of bias.

The Persian division — whose content had seen a growing audience among Iranian news consumers before the shutdown, according to a VOA fact sheet — is now led by Ali Javanmardi, an Iranian Kurdish journalist who has drawn scrutiny for censoring the outlet’s reporting on Iranian opposition figures such as Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince who gained renewed prominence amid mass protests that swept the country prior to the war. One journalist with the Persian service said this month he was fired because of disagreements with leadership over the network’s direction.

The editorial constraints and massive cuts to VOA’s stable of full-time reporters not only “decimated the Iran division” but also “politicized it at a time when it is more important than ever for the United States to be speaking directly to the Iranians,” the USAGM source told Jewish Insider before the recent rulings, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. “It’s a shame what has happened.”

Now, as the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Iran continues amid a near-total internet blackout imposed by the country’s regime, the need to reach information-starved Iranians has only grown more urgent, several experts familiar with the matter told JI.

But there are ongoing concerns that VOA as well as a federally funded but independent network, Radio Free Europe/Free Liberty, which operates a Persian service called Radio Farda, will continue to struggle due to government roadblocks that have obstructed their ability to produce meaningful stories and even to transmit broadcasts that Iranians have viewed as trusted sources during previous domestic conflicts.

“By adhering to the truth, U.S. international broadcasting can be a powerful tool in America’s arsenal, particularly in Iran where RFE/RL and VOA have strong brands and audiences,” Jamie Fly, who led RFE/RL from 2019-2020 and now serves as chief executive of Freedom House, a think tank promoting global democracy, told JI on Thursday.

Under current management, however, USAGM “seems to be doing everything possible to ensure that President Trump’s messages to the Iranian people are not heard, and in some cases, directly contradicted,” Fly added.

RFE/RL, which Lake tried but failed to shut down, has faced a litany of obstacles that have particularly diminished Radio Farda’s broadcasting presence in Iran. In addition to withholding funding that forced its Persian service to furlough half of its staff, Lake’s efforts to target the network included cutting access to a key U.S. transmitter in Kuwait that allowed it to disseminate its broadcasts in Iran and inhibiting the use of virtual private networks that help circumvent internet shutdowns, among other hostile moves.

According to an RFE/RL source, USAGM “is still asking that” the network “use its own grant” resources to broadcast via short and medium wave radio from the Kuwait transmitter — which is federally funded. USAGM “resumed transmissions of Radio Farda” on shortwave in early February and medium wave in early March, the source told JI. The network has additionally paid for satellite as well as short and medium wave transmissions using its “own grant funds already through private vendors.”

“As the internet remains unstable” in Iran, the source said, “our journalists have been able to conduct interviews with and receive updates from Iranians on the ground only periodically.” 

Despite such issues, Farda “continues to garner a significant audience online,” the source told JI. From Feb. 28 to March 17, for instance, “Farda published 738 posts on Instagram, recording 105.5 million impressions and 28.6 million video views.”

Even as the organization has managed to bypass some impediments to its operations, another RFE/RL source described intense frustration with USAGM, calling its oversight “dysfunctional” as the agency has sought to exert its control over a network that — unlike VOA — is not a government entity.

“They have no plan,” the source said on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. “There’s no strategy.” 

USAGM “could and should be more cooperative when Iran blocks” internet access, the source told JI this week. “We should all be surging into Iran now,” where RFE/RL has learned that university students in the country have been “sharing shortwave radios to hear” its broadcasts amid the war.

USAGM did not respond to a request for comment. On social media, Lake has otherwise touted VOA’s efforts to reach Iranians, despite criticism that she has hampered its resources and diluted its Persian coverage — which she wrote in one recent post that she had tried to “realign” with “U.S. foreign policy.”

Experts raised doubts about the possibility of an imminent news surge into Iran even if the judge’s recent ruling is expected to soon restore VOA to its pre-shutdown capacity. As USAGM maintained an adversarial posture toward VOA, RFE/FL and other federally funded nonprofit groups, it still remains to be seen if Rogers, the nominee to succeed Lake, will change direction. Lake, meanwhile, has pledged she will appeal the ruling invalidating her role and said that she will continue at USAGM as its deputy CEO.

Amid the changes, Ilan Berman, an Iran expert at the American Foreign Policy Council who serves on the board of RFE/FL, told JI in an interview that he was “cautiously optimistic there is going to be more coherence to administration” inside USAGM, after a year in which he questioned its “strategic mission.”

During Lake’s tenure, “there was no coherence to the informational enterprise” except for a “focus on disruption,” Berman noted. “The people who suffer are the people of Iran.”

The anti-Israel campus protest movement is facing “fear and exhaustion” amid the Trump administration’s crackdown, Mahmoud Khalil, who led demonstrations against Israel on Columbia University’s campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza, said on Sunday at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.

“With the Biden administration, you protest because you feel you can move the needle a little bit,” said Khalil. “But with Trump, it’s like plain tyranny. They would not listen.” 

Khalil, who spoke three days after an attempted terrorist attack at a synagogue in Michigan, noted that “antisemitism is real in this country” and condemned “violence against civilians.” 

At the same time, he argued that “claims of antisemitism are being weaponized to silence any critique of the U.S. support to Israel.” 

“All mainstream Jewish organizations in this country are disregarding real antisemitism in the Republican Party and just protecting Israel,” continued Khalil. He spoke in an hourlong conversation “on the cost of dissent,” with The Guardian editor Betsy Reed and Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center For Constitutional Rights who was a lawyer for Khalil in his ongoing deportation proceedings.

SXSW, a weeklong festival that convenes around 300,000 guests, including film and media professionals, executives and politicians to discuss culture, technology and innovation, faced scrutiny from some Jewish leaders over its decision to platform Khalil. 

Greg Rosenbaum, SXSW senior vice president of programming, told the Austin American-Statesman that hosting the discussion does not mean the festival endorses Khalil’s views.

“While many people, including us, may strongly disagree with some of the views, the reality is that expressing some of those views in a country with free speech protections led him to be imprisoned,” said Rosenbaum. “That doesn’t mean we support what he says, but it does mean that there’s a broader conversation that’s worth having about speech, disagreement and the consequences people face for expressing controversial ideas.”

Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, expressed dismay at this justification. “But platforms amplify voices — that’s the point,” he wrote on X prior to Khalil’s appearance. “Giving him this platform is a mistake.

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.  

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. A federal appeals court ruled in January that Khalil could be rearrested. 

Asked on Sunday by Reed about his repeated refusal to denounce Hamas in a CNN interview shortly after being released from detention, Khalil still did not condemn the terrorist organization. Instead, he said he “would never answer such a question in a 20-second sound bite,” and argued that it was a “double standard” to be asked the question in the first place.   

“When Palestinians get asked this question, they are not interested in my views,” he said. “That question was asked a month after my release. If you say yes, maybe you are worth listening to and if not, then you’re discredited. That’s why I refused to answer that question. 

“You can never justify violence and Oct. 7 but to them you can never contextualize Oct. 7, [yet] Oct. 7 justifies everything that happened after. To me that’s a double standard. These are all deliberate attempts to silence people.”  

The Trump administration intervened to water down a broadly bipartisan sanctions bill targeting Iran’s oil exports to China, sources told Jewish Insider.

The House is set to vote next week on the Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act, led by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Sheila Cherfilus McCormick (D-FL), which has nearly 300 cosponsors and advanced out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in April 2025 by a voice vote, indicating broad bipartisan support. It began moving to the House floor earlier this year using a consensus measure for legislation with at least 290 cosponsors.

But the version of the bill now up for consideration is significantly different from the version that was first introduced and passed out of committee.

A congressional source and another person familiar with the legislation said that the changes, which they said would soften the impact of the bill, had been made at the behest of the Trump administration, which had delayed progress on the bill for months over concerns about placing sanctions on China, which would have been caught up in the expanded sanctions on Iran’s oil trade as the primary importer of Iranian oil. 

The administration has been engaging in trade talks with Beijing, which it felt could have been disrupted by the enactment of sanctions, though the Treasury Department has still sanctioned some oil processing facilities in China under other authorities passed by Congress in 2024.

As currently written, the legislation gives the administration the authority to impose sanctions on foreign individuals or businesses that have “knowingly engaged in any significant transaction related or incidental to the processing, refining, export, transfer or sale of oil, condensates, or other petroleum or petrochemical product in whole or part from Iran” or conducted significant transactions with individuals or institutions sanctioned under a previous Iran oil sanctions bill.

The sanctions would also apply to corporate officers of such companies and immediate family members who “demonstrably benefit” from these activities.

The original version of the sanctions legislation, however, mandated the imposition of such sanctions — providing less latitude to the administration in implementing the bill — and specified that banks and financial institutions, insurance providers, ship-flagging registries, pipeline builders and operators of processing facilities would all specifically be subject to sanctions under the legislation. 

It applied to successors and aliases of sanctioned companies, as well as to individuals or organizations that directly or indirectly owned or controlled a majority interest in a sanctioned institution or were majority owned or controlled by a sanctioned institution. And the sanctions applied to all immediate family members of those directly sanctioned.

The original bill applied to any transaction related to the Iranian petrochemical trade, rather than only “significant” transactions, and included specific mention of natural gas exports as well.

The updated legislation modifies the presidential waiver provision, which originally applied only if the president determined that waiving the sanctions was “vital to the national interests” of the U.S. The updated version allows a waiver if it is “in the national interests” of the country.

The original bill required the administration to notify Congress 15 days before it planned to renew a waiver, if applicable, whereas the new bill does not include any specific timeline for such notification.

The updated bill also entirely eliminates provisions creating an interagency working group responsible for working with international partners to coordinate sanctions and share intelligence.

The new version of the bill includes a provision that would terminate the sanctions if Iran ceases its malign activities.

The House will also vote next week on the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, which aims to help Jewish families recover Nazi-looted artwork by eliminating loopholes used by museums and other stakeholders that have continued to hold such works.

The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent.

Both bills are being offered under suspension of the rules, a procedure requiring two-thirds support from the chamber. 

Remarks by pro-Israel stalwarts Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Brad Schneider (D-IL) on a Jewish Democratic Council of America webinar on Wednesday highlighted the delicate line that some pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers are walking on the war in Iran.

Wasserman Schultz and Schneider, along with some of their Democratic colleagues, are longtime Iran hawks and have previously supported many of the stated aims of the war, but express deep skepticism of how the Trump administration is handling the operation and its decision not to seek congressional authorization. 

Both Democrats voted for a war powers resolution last week that sought to bring an immediate halt to the war.

Wasserman Schultz said that, in addition to legal and constitutional concerns, Trump made a “colossally stupid” decision in not coming to Congress because some lawmakers, including her, might have voted to support an operation against Iran if presented with the proper intelligence and a clear plan.

“I can tell you assuredly: had I been presented with an Authorization for Use of Military Force, that made sense, and that we were properly briefed, and there was a demonstrative, imminent threat — which we have really yet to be shown — I am someone on our side of the aisle that likely would have voted for an AUMF if all of those things were in place,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Instead, [President Donald Trump] has blown an opportunity to go in in the most prepared way.”

By sidestepping Congress, the administration left the U.S. unprepared for the implications and blowback from the war, Wasserman Schultz said, highlighting, among other issues, the administration’s failure to evacuate American citizens from the region before the war started.

“I am so frustrated because I think everyone on this call knows how dangerous, deeply evil Iran is as a regime,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I have been careful about just blanket-ly condemning everything [Trump is] doing here, but most certainly, the way that we got into this was really unacceptable, and my constituents are very concerned.”

While Wasserman Schultz said she supported diplomacy with Iran, she also expressed skepticism about its chances for success, explaining that the Iranian regime would likely have sought to string the U.S. along until Trump left office, buying time to continue building its nuclear and missile programs.

Schneider said he believes strongly that the U.S. needs to address the threat from Iran, as well “help the people of Iran free themselves” from the regime, but added that “the Constitution is clear” that only Congress can declare war, and the administration has still not clearly identified an imminent threat that would have allowed it to legally take action unilaterally. He also said he does not trust the administration to properly carry through the mission without oversight.

“We can agree on the objectives in confronting Iran. We have no idea what the goals of this war are, or the strategy for achieving those goals, or the endgame that is trying to be ultimately accomplished that would bring the war to an end,” Schneider said. “My biggest fear is Trump … declares victory and goes home with Iran’s regime still in place, the nuclear program not completely defeated, [the] ballistic missile program damaged but not eliminated.”

He said that he’s afraid that, if the administration doesn’t set clear objectives, it will stop the war prematurely and ultimately leave the Iranian regime “more entrenched, feeling more powerful.”

The Illinois congressman speculated that Iranian leadership, by gathering in one central location, could have “present[ed] an opportunity that was too good to pass up” in launching the war but said that the administration still hasn’t properly articulated to lawmakers its thinking and strategy, so he does not know if that is the case.

Schneider said that an ideal outcome would require removing Iran’s enriched uranium from the country, which would necessitate international inspectors and a diplomatic settlement.

“There is no military solution to get us where we ultimately need to be. It has to be a political solution,” he said. “The military action always needed to be on the table to help us achieve that political solution. But with this President, I think it’s more ready, fire, aim, as opposed to ready, aim, fire.”

Schneider also called for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to be removed from his job, saying Hegseth has failed to prepare for easily anticipated Iranian responses like mining the Strait of Hormuz, or to ensure proper oversight to prevent civilian casualties.

Wasserman Schultz said that she would consider a supplemental funding request if and when the administration presents one, emphasizing that she wants to ensure U.S. troops have the resources they need because “it’s not their choice to be there,” even if she doesn’t fully agree with the administration’s approach.

Wasserman Schultz added that she’s concerned that the war is “compromising our ability” to protect the U.S. from Russia and China.

Asked about a supplemental request, Schneider emphasized that U.S. servicemembers have his strong support and are “doing their job, they’re succeeding, and we should all pray for the success of their mission and their safe return.”

But he said he’s disappointed with the political leadership in the administration, particularly its distribution of online videos intermixing footage from the war with movie clips and video games, even as U.S. servicemembers have been killed and injured. “No one should take glee in the killing of the enemy. It is a necessary act that is advancing our interests.”

JDCA itself also seems to be striking a delicate balance.

The group’s CEO Halie Soifer said JDCA agrees with the need to stop Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, but emphasized that Trump is going around Congress and that, while some Democrats might “support, perhaps, some of the short-term tactical gains” some also “believe the administration is lacking a long-term strategy for success in Iran.”

Schneider and Wasserman Schultz were also critical of comments by Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggesting that Israel had effectively dragged the U.S. into the war. Rubio has said those comments were mischaracterized. Both criticized that framing of the conflict as incorrect and as potential fodder for increased antisemitism.

“The president said it himself: He was not compelled, he may have compelled Israel,” Schneider said. 

But he added, “in the end, it doesn’t really matter,” predicting a similar rise in antisemitism as occurred around the 1973 Yom Kippur War — launched by Egypt — when people in the U.S. blamed Jews and Israel for rising gas prices.

“Because this administration did not have that conversation with Congress and, through Congress, with the American people, people are going to look for scapegoats,” he said. “And when folks are looking for scapegoats, Jews are almost always one of those targets.”

Wasserman Schultz said that Rubio’s comments were “unbelievable” and “dangerous.”

“It is incredibly dangerous for Jews worldwide, and … unacceptable for him to have basically set it up that, ‘Well, we had to do this because it’s the Jews’ fault,’” Wasserman Schultz said. “Once it’s said, the impact — it remains.”

Speaking broadly, she said that the picture presented to lawmakers in a classified setting was “more subtle.”

The next frontier for the Trump administration’s war with higher education might be the U.S. tax code, a senior Education Department official said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a conference about antisemitism organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition and National Review, Noah Pollak, a senior advisor to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, said that making changes to American tax policy could be a useful vehicle to fight antisemitism on campuses. 

His argument was a wonky one, suggesting that changes to IRS rules regulating nonprofits could increase transparency — and require the organizations fomenting antisemitism at U.S. universities to reveal much more information about their operations and staff.

Pollak called for the federal government to create limits on fiscal sponsorship, a tool by which an existing nonprofit incubates a new one. This allows a new nonprofit organization to launch quickly, with donations passing through a larger, more established organization. The idea is that once the new nonprofit has a steadier foundation, it will eventually incorporate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the IRS, after which point it must meet certain federal requirements and make information about its finances and activities publicly available. 

But there is currently no legal requirement that a nonprofit ever spin off from the organization where it is fiscally sponsored. That allows organizations seeking to avoid the spotlight to stay in the shadows, and to avoid having to file a Form 990, the IRS-mandated document that nonprofits must file yearly laying out the state of their finances, activities, senior staff and top board members.

“Over the past 15 years or so, particularly on the left and on the far left, they realized that there were really no restrictions on this, and you could just run whole organizations via fiscal sponsorships,” Pollak said. “It means you can raise money — tax deductible money, which is much easier to raise than non-tax deductible money — and never have to disclose who the money’s going to, what it’s funding [or] how much money.”  

Pollak argued this transparency gap benefits organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, which played a key role in fomenting anti-Israel sentiment on campuses after the Oct. 7 terror attacks. 

“Changing the fiscal sponsorship rules to compel disclosure of who’s being funded via fiscal sponsorships would basically be a neutron bomb going off in the world of radical, left-wing, kind of criminal activism,” said Pollak. “You all know what Students for Justice in Palestine is. Go try to find their EIN [Employer Identification Number]. Go try to find a 990 for them. You can’t. They’re not a real organization. They’re not incorporated.” 

“Things in the tax code, they may sound boring,” Pollak added. “But they would be very effective in creating some disclosure.”

Pollak said changes to the tax code might also force universities to cut back on spending on left-wing priorities. 

“Over the past 40 or 50 years, the tax code has actually been tweaked and rigged and modified in so many different ways that creates a lot of advantages for universities, to the point where the universities now have so much money that they can spend on essentially luxury goods,” Pollak said. “For a university, the luxury goods they spend on is the gender studies department, and it’s DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] bureaucracies.” 

Pollak pointed to those “luxury goods” — left-wing programs in the humanities, for instance — as a key factor in the growth of antisemitism at elite universities. He did not offer a specific policy fix but said he thinks that the solution might be found in the tax code.

“If you actually look at adjustments to the tax code, that will translate into less antisemitism, because the universities would be compelled to sober up to get back to the core mission of education and the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of excellence,” said Pollak. “They would actually have to drop a lot of the kind of insane nonsense departments and fake academic programs.”

Universities’ status as nonprofit organizations should also come into play when the State Department determines how many foreign students should be allowed to enroll at those universities, Pollak said. 

The Trump administration has sought to limit the number of foreign students at universities and deport those who are flouting American values; Pollak argued that the number of foreign students at elite institutions is so high that they push the campuses toward an anti-American sentiment. 

“There’s so many of them, and many of them are from cultures that, frankly, are not particularly compatible with the type of values that we want on a campus, on a Western U.S. campus, and they get our kids spun up on third worldist-type causes and radical causes,” said Pollak. 

“Universities in America are actually supposed to — they are charities. They’re 501(c)(3)s, and they are actually supposed to be operated for the benefit of Americans, and not just be kind of sold out to whoever wants to come from all over the world.” 

On Monday, the Trump administration moved to designate the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity and announced plans to impose a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation on March 16.

“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a press release. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”

The SMB is composed of the Sudanese Islamic Movement and its armed wing, the al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade (BBMB). The Muslim Brotherhood has maintained a significant presence in Sudan since the 1940s and has played a role in the country’s ongoing civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — backed by Iran, Russia, Egypt and Turkey — and the Rapid Support Forces, which have reportedly received support from the United Arab Emirates.

Experts have previously told Jewish Insider that the SAF is heavily influenced by the SMB, working alongside several Islamist militias and receiving attack drones from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been designated as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and the European Union. The SMB has contributed roughly 20,000 fighters to the conflict, with many receiving “training and other support” from the IRGC, according to the State Department. 

An alleged Muslim Brotherhood leader in the Sudanese Armed Forces was also caught on video last week asserting that the group is ready to defend Iran amid the ongoing conflict between Tehran and the U.S. and Israel. The leader suggested that the group would send battalions to fight alongside Iran, according to Sky News Arabia. 

“As the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian regime has financed and directed malign activities globally through its IRGC,” Rubio said in the statement, adding that the SMB has also “conducted mass executions of civilians.”

The designation marks the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and represents a notable policy step into the Sudan conflict. In January, the administration designated three Muslim Brotherhood branches in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as SDGT entities, with the State Department citing their provision of “material support to Hamas.”

A chorus of senior Trump administration officials, including White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to offer a decisive rebuttal on Tuesday to what they deemed to be a false narrative, which had spread like wildfire a day before. 

They were all responding to the political tumult and online furor that erupted after Rubio briefed congressional leaders about the U.S. military operation in Iran on Monday afternoon. 

A narrative quickly formed — based in large part on a viral post on X from the White House clipping an excerpt of Rubio’s comments — that Trump decided to strike Iran because Israel was already planning an attack, which would then prompt Iranian retaliation, thus putting American troops at risk. 

“The president made the very wise decision — we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters. 

The White House shared that sound bite in a post on X that was viewed more than 13 million times in less than a day. Rubio’s Monday messaging about Israel was echoed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) after he and other congressional leaders received Rubio’s briefing. 

The question that was then posed dozens of times by reporters to policymakers: Had Israel forced America’s hand and dragged the U.S. into war? 

Never mind that Rubio also said in those same remarks the U.S. was not “forced” to strike because of an impending Israeli action. “No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen,” Rubio said. The White House shared that sound bite on X Tuesday morning, drawing 500,000 views, a fraction of the visibility of the earlier post. “No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” was the headline Leavitt posted on X. But the damage had already been done.

Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the same question in a Monday night interview. “You don’t have to drag him into anything,” Netanyahu said of Trump. “He does what he thinks is right for America.” 

Another reporter then posed the question to Trump directly on Tuesday during an Oval Office meeting between the president and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“No,” Trump said decisively. “I might have forced their hand.” Hegseth then chimed in on X boosting Trump’s message: “This is 100% correct.” 

Rubio similarly refuted a reporter who said the U.S. needed to get involved because Israel was going to strike Iran.

“Your statement is false,” he said Tuesday during another visit to Capitol Hill for all-member briefings in the House and Senate. “Somebody asked me the question yesterday, did we go in because of Israel … I told you this had to happen anyway. The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made.”

The question, he said, was “a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation. Not the question of the intent.” 

Some questions remain unanswered. Trump told reporters alongside Merz that Iran was going to attack first, but it was not clear whom he expected Iran to attack, the Israelis or the Americans. A White House spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” Trump said. “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we’ve had a very, very powerful impact.” 

Even as the White House refuted the narrative that Israel had pulled the U.S. into war and put American servicemembers at risk, Democratic lawmakers and right-wing podcasters turned it into an online rallying cry. 

“So Netanyahu now decides when we go to war? So much for America First,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) said in a post on X on Monday. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor to President Barack Obama, argued Trump could not bring himself to say no to Netanyahu: “Donald Trump is so weak that he couldn’t tell Bibi Netanyahu no, so now we are at war,” he said in response to the Rubio clip. 

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who was in Monday’s briefing by Rubio, afterward described the strikes as “dictated by Israel’s goals and timelines” and said he opposed them. 

On the right, Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire sharply criticized Rubio. “So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said,” Walsh wrote. 

The conservative pundit Megyn Kelly said that the American servicemembers who have so far died in the campaign did not give their lives for the United States. “No one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel,” she said on Monday. 

Now progressive Jewish groups are attacking the White House, saying that pinning the war on Israel feeds into antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“Shifting blame for American military decisions to Netanyahu is an abdication of responsibility and comes with the dangerous side effect of fueling antisemitic sentiment in the United States,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said Tuesday.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America called Rubio’s language “unprecedented, dangerous and deeply irresponsible.”

“As Jewish Americans, we’re deeply concerned about the consequences of the White House effectively blaming Israel for its decision to launch a war against Iran, which has now spread to the entire Middle East,” JDCA said in a Tuesday statement. 

The Republican Jewish Coalition, meanwhile, spent Tuesday reposting messages from the White House, the Senate Republican Caucus and the Pentagon that Israel had not, in fact, dragged the U.S. into war. 

Rubio attempted to offer a final rebuttal of the narrative about Israel driving the war when he was back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He acknowledged how his comments the day before had spread — although he did not mention that the White House played a role in amplifying them.

“If you’re going to play the statements, you need to play the whole statement, and not clip it to reach a narrative,” said Rubio.

Good Tuesday afternoon,

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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 Trump administration emphatically denied reports, based on partial comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday, that Israel forced the U.S. to launch the operation against Iran. 

“If anything, I might’ve forced Israel’s hand,” President Donald Trump told reporters while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office today. “You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boosted the president’s comments, saying, “This is 100% correct,” while Rubio insisted his original remarks were misrepresented…

Trump continues to share optimistic assessments of the war’s progress: he told Politico that Iran is running out of missile launchers while claiming the U.S. has “a virtually unlimited supply” of weapons, saying, “wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies”…

The Israeli Air Force struck a building where senior clerics had gathered to elect Iran’s next supreme leader, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told CNN, “and there’s a very good chance that the electors won’t be readily available for any further meetings”…

Trump is open to backing militias in Iran who will work to mount regime change, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal, after he held phone calls with Kurdish leaders who maintain armed groups along the Iran-Iraq border.

Trump has wavered in recent comments on his vision for the future of Iran, saying today that “somebody from within” might be the best option to lead, rather than individuals like exiled former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. At the same time, Trump told reporters, “Most of the people we had in mind are dead. And now we have another group, they may be dead also. Pretty soon we’re not gonna know anybody”…

Trump ordered the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to provide political risk insurance for all maritime trade traveling through the Gulf, as oil traffic has essentially halted and energy prices have soared. The U.S. Navy will also, if necessary, begin physically escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered his country’s assistance to the UAE, as the Gulf country has been targeted by over 1,000 Iranian drones and missiles since the operation began Saturday. Ukraine has become particularly skilled in combating Iranian Shahed drones, something the UAE has little experience with, as Russia has regularly used them in its attacks on Ukraine…

The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia was struck with two Iranian drones, with no casualties reported; the embassy was closed, along with U.S. embassies in Kuwait and Beirut. The State Department ordered the mandatory departure of all non-emergency personnel in several countries and has begun “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave” the region… 

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear enrichment plant was struck in the course of hostilities in recent days. Trump has claimed the site was rendered inoperable during the U.S.’ June 2025 strikes…

Alex Soros, one of the progressive movement’s most influential donors, boosted a social media post today about U.S. casualties in the war with Iran from Max Blumenthal, a prominent anti-Israel conspiracy theorist, Jewish Insider‘s Matthew Kassel reports.

Soros also praised Spain for its refusal to allow the U.S. to use joint bases on its soil, calling Madrid the “leader of the free world” and reprimanding other European countries for not doing the same…

After issuing a statement solely attacking the U.S. and Israel over the campaign against Iran — which provoked backlash from members of the Iranian dissident and diaspora communities — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged the “systematic repression” of the Iranian people by the regime, while declining to criticize the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.

Even as he acknowledged Tehran’s bloody suppression of protesters, Mamdani did not directly answer a reporter’s question at a press conference today about whether the Middle Eastern nation was better off without the radical cleric who ruled for nearly 37 years…

Amazon Web Services operations are “significantly impaired” after three of its data centers in the Middle East were struck by Iranian drones — two directly hit in the UAE and one sustaining damage in Bahrain. The strikes “caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” AWS said…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at the results of today’s high-stakes primary elections in North Carolina and Texas and their implications for pro-Israel voters.

The Heritage Foundation will hold an event to launch its 2026 “Index of U.S. Military Strength” with remarks from Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Reps. August Pfluger (R-TX), Pat Harrigan (R-TX) and Matt Van Epps (R-TN).

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom will release its annual report tomorrow on Capitol Hill.

Stories You May Have Missed

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A trio of Mamdani backers united with tech and real estate investors to boost anti-Israel candidates

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Speaking at J Street’s national summit, Sen. Tim Kaine also said ‘virtually all’ Democratic senators now seek the group’s endorsement

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Building on a monthslong battle between the Trump administration and the University of California, the Department of Justice filed a suit on Tuesday against the university system, alleging that its Los Angeles campus failed to protect Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination.  

The 81-page DOJ complaint, filed in California’s Central District, alleges that since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks in Israel, UCLA “has ignored, and continues to ignore, gross and repeated violations of viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Jewish and Israeli faculty have been physically threatened, had their classrooms disrupted, and had their workplaces papered with disturbing images.”

“Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home, and even leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment,” the suit alleges. 

In a statement to Jewish Insider, Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor of strategic communications, said the university has “taken concrete and significant steps to strengthen campus safety, enforce policies, and combat antisemitism in a systemic and sustained manner.”

Osako said those efforts have included hiring a Title VI/Title VII officer “to ensure professionalized oversight and accountability” and strengthened time, place, and manner policies “to protect both free expression and campus operations.”  

The federal suit is a significant escalation of the government’s crackdown on what it alleges are failures across the University of California system to address antisemitism. Multiple civil rights investigations have been launched into the system and individual campuses.

The lawsuit comes seven months after UCLA settled a federal lawsuit with Jewish students who alleged that the university permitted antisemitic conduct during the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampments on the campus.

Yitzchok Frankel, then a second-year law student at UCLA, filed suit against the university in June 2024, claiming that he was “harassed and blocked from approaching the encampment by antisemitic activists, all with the assistance of UCLA security.” Two other Jewish UCLA students and a UCLA medical school professor later joined the suit. As part of the settlement, UCLA agreed to provide support to community organizations engaged in combating antisemitism.

Last year, the Trump administration sought more than $1 billion and a range of concessions from the university in order to restore funding frozen over alleged antisemitism, which was never paid — even after some research money was restored. 

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled in November in a preliminary injunction that the Trump administration could not fine the University of California or cut the school system’s federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other types of discrimination.  

The government did not offer a specific financial demand of UCLA in Tuesday’s lawsuit, but it suggested “awarding damages” to “aggrieved Jewish and Israeli UCLA employees.”

Several dozen diplomats, senior Trump administration officials and Jewish communal leaders gathered at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on Friday night for a Shabbat dinner hosted by Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. antisemitism special envoy, according to a source who attended the dinner. 

A day earlier, that same space had hosted the inaugural Board of Peace meeting. 

The gathering brought together a coterie of Washington officials, including Princess Reema, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., and United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, even though ties between the two Gulf nations have been strained in recent months. Other diplomats in the room came from France, Germany, Poland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lebanon and Jordan, according to the source. 

Kaploun, who started at the State Department in December after being confirmed by the Senate, spoke at the event. He had recently returned from his first overseas trip, with stops in London, Switzerland and the Munich Security Forum. Reed Rubinstein, the State Department legal advisor, also spoke, as did Princess Reema. The Saudi diplomat talked about how close Israel and Saudi Arabia were to normalization before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and that she hoped to get back to that point, although normalization efforts have stalled. 

“Kaploun hosting Arab and European diplomats for a traditional, family-style Shabbat and watching them love every minute of it is one the most clever displays of soft diplomacy I’ve ever seen,” the attendee, who requested anonymity to discuss an off-the-record event, told Jewish Insider. “The Saudis called for normalization. Who saw that coming?”

Most attendees were either diplomats or Trump administration officials, but Republican donor Miriam Adelson was also in the room. Combat Antisemitism Movement founder Adam Beren and board member Arie Lipnick, Conference of Presidents Chair Betsy Berns Korn and Jewish Federations of North America Chair Gary Torgow were also in attendance. 

“Diplomats and leaders from across our country and across the world gathered together in a comfortable setting in our nation’s capital and shared a meaningful meal,” Korn told JI. “Ambassador Kaploun explained the importance of Shabbat as well as a heartfelt speech about the dangers of hatred. His powerful message of peace and community resonated throughout the room. We need more of this diplomacy.”

Guests noshed on Shabbat fish, potato kugel, matzah ball soup and more, along with Mediterranean desserts in honor of iftar for the Muslim diplomats in the room, according to the source. 

Jeremy Lewin, the acting under secretary of state for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom, attended the dinner, as did Sarah Rogers, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, and Pierre Gentin, general counsel at the Commerce Department. 

Kaploun said at the event that he plans to host more Shabbat dinners in the future. 

👋 Good Thursday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview today’s Board of Peace gathering in Washington as the Trump administration mulls military action against Tehran, and cover an effort by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to force a vote on a resolution blocking the Trump administration from conducting strikes on Iran. We report on the GOP primary in Texas’ 23rd District, where Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is facing allegations he had an affair with a staffer who has since died by suicide, is facing a challenge from a far-right influencer with a history of antisemitic social media activity, and talk to former Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop about his new role leading the Partnership for New York City. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Bari Weiss, Roddie Edmonds and Amb. Mike Huckabee.

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

• The Trump administration is convening its Board of Peace today in Washington. Among those attending the gathering are Argentine President Javier Milei, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Belarus Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. More below.
• Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut will deliver the inaugural “State of the Jewish Union” address at the organization’s Washington headquarters.
• The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is holding a daylong public briefing today on antisemitism on campus. Speakers include Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick, Louis D. Brandeis Center founder Kenneth Marcus, National Jewish Advocacy Center CEO Mark Goldfeder, law professor Eugene Volokh and The George Washington University Law School’s Matt Nosanchuk.
• The National Governors Association kicks off its annual Washington summit today.
• Minister of Economic Affairs at the Israel Embassy in Washington Noach Hacker is speaking at the Hudson Institute today, where he will sit with Hudson’s Mike Doran for a conversation about U.S.-Israel economic ties.
• French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are attending the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, that kicked off earlier today.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

High-level foreign officials, top diplomats and heads of state will gather in Washington today for the first in-person convening of the Trump administration’s Board of Peace — as U.S. military assets flow into the Middle East and President Donald Trump mulls a potentially weekslong sustained military campaign in Iran.

The gathering, ostensibly focused on the disarmament of Hamas and the establishment of a peace-aligned administration in the Gaza Strip, comes as the U.S. moves dozens of fighter jets and support aircraft to the region — reportedly the largest buildup in military air power since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It’s a split screen befitting the president — who said at his inauguration last year that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” and who has claimed success in negotiating an end to numerous conflicts, as well as the release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Gaza last year — even as the U.S. has used force to enact political change, such as in Venezuela.

But a U.S. operation in Iran would differ significantly from what took place in Venezuela last month. In the place of ousted President Nicolás Maduro is Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president who is now working with the Trump administration. No such natural successor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exists. Behind the supreme leader is a laundry list of equally — if not more — radical hard-liners eager to take the ailing Khamenei’s place. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah of Iran, who has spent most of his life living in exile, has sought to return to Iran to usher the Islamic Republic into a new democratic era — but does not appear to have the on-the-ground support as well as enough legitimacy among Iran’s vast diaspora community. 

The Trump administration continues to signal publicly that it wants to find a diplomatic resolution to the situation in Iran, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying as much at yesterday’s press briefing. 

But the White House is continuing to move forward with preparations for a military confrontation, which could include anything from targeted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to a move toward regime change. Trump met on Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss options for Iran.

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

TEHRAN TENSIONS

‘Don’t change your weekend plans,’ experts say amid media frenzy over possible Iran strikes

Tensions in Israel continued to rise over possible missile strikes from Iran, as signals increased that President Donald Trump is ready to order a strike on the Islamic Republic, possibly within days. Yet experts told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on Thursday that, despite the constant flow of reports that Trump favors a military response as negotiations with Iran falter, an American strike and Iranian retaliation against Israel are likely not imminent. In a moment that went viral in Israel and sparked hundreds of phone calls to the IDF Home Front Command, former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday that while he went to the Munich Security Conference last week, “I would think twice about flying [abroad] on the coming weekend.”

On alert: IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin, however, said that “there is no change in the situational assessment, and if there will be, we will update [the public]. There is no need to panic.” Defrin also noted that “there are negotiations, and the IDF has long been prepared for maximum defense. If we are attacked, we will respond forcefully.” However, while Israel’s leadership and the IDF’s assessment is that the U.S. will warn them before a strike, they plan to prepare quietly and not alert the public in advance, in order to increase the chances of success, Israel’s Kann News reported on Wednesday. Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, quipped to JI in reference to Yadlin’s remarks: “Don’t change your weekend plans.” 

Read the full story here.

Central target: Home Front Command chief Maj.-Gen. Shay Klapper told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday that “the Home Front Command will be a central arena in relevant operational scenarios and is a significant component of Israeli society’s resilience and ability to save lives.” 

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ON THE AGENDA

What to watch for at the Board of Peace’s first meeting in D.C.

After a splashy debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace will convene for its first meeting on Thursday in Washington. The new international body now faces a test of its ability to operationalize its goals: Observers will be watching whether the board makes any significant announcements toward its goal of implementing Phase 2 of Trump’s peace plan, which is focused on rebuilding Gaza and securing the enclave, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Matthew Shea report. 

Expected substance: A source familiar with Thursday’s meeting told JI that it is “not just pomp and circumstance,” and that they expect discussion about topics including humanitarian aid and the Palestinian technocratic government in Gaza. “It’s not window dressing at all,” the source said of the board’s work. According to a senior Trump administration official, speakers at the event will include Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Nickolay Mladenov, the former U.N. Middle East envoy now serving as the high representative for Gaza on the Board of Peace. Little has been shared publicly about what the format will be. 

Read the full story here.

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TEXAS TROUBLE

How an anti-Israel Republican with an antisemitic history could get elected in Texas

An unfolding scandal implicating Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) could catapult an anti-Israel social media influencer with a history of antisemitic posts to Congress in Texas’ upcoming 23rd District Republican primary, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Brandon Herrera, who ran against Gonzales in 2024, came under fire from Gonzales and Jewish and pro-Israel groups in the previous election cycle over a series of his YouTube videos replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. He also expressed opposition to U.S. aid to Israel.

Shake-up: But Tuesday evening, corroborating a long-running rumor, the San Antonio Express News reported that Gonzales had been having an extramarital affair with a female staffer who died by suicide last year. The paper reported that the relationship was allegedly well-known and cited multiple sources close to the woman, including a former colleague, and a text message she sent confirming the relationship prior to her death.

Read the full story here.

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FULOP’S FIGHT

Former Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop brings the fight against antisemitism to NYC’s business community

As he settles into his role leading the Partnership for New York City, a prominent business advocacy group, Steve Fulop, the former longtime mayor of Jersey City, N.J., has a few major issues on his mind, chief among them countering the rise of antisemitism. For Fulop, a Jewish Democrat who assumed his new job last month, just five days after he left office on Jan. 15, such efforts are not only personal as a former yeshiva student who was also the grandson of Holocaust survivors. They are directly connected, he explained to Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, to promoting a friendlier climate where businesses can feel safe and welcome in the city.

Should I stay or should I go: Many of the Partnership’s Jewish board members, representing some of the city’s most powerful firms in finance, real estate and other leading sectors, also share his sense of urgency, Fulop said, as do many of the 800,000 employees who make up his group’s core constituency. “They often say of the tax conversation that we could talk about whether people stay or go, if they migrate elsewhere,” Fulop said of his conversations with members in an interview with JI on Tuesday at his fifth-floor office in the Financial District, which looks out on Jersey City. “But if you continue on a trend where it feels like antisemitism is increasing and quality of life is decreasing, that is a trigger for people to leave very, very fast.”

Read the full interview here.

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CUBA CAMPAIGN

Nearly half of New York City Council joins JVP, CODEPINK in pro-Cuba appeal

A raft of Democrats — including 23 members of the 51-seat New York City Council, multiple state lawmakers and four candidates for Congress — have joined forces with a Beijing-aligned tech tycoon to bail out the fuel-starved dictatorship in Cuba. The officials in question lent their names to the “Let Cuba Live” campaign, which denounces President Donald Trump’s oil embargo on the island nation and seeks to triage solar panels and generators to defray the crippling impact on its energy production, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. 

Who’s involved: All donations for the effort run through the People’s Forum, a Manhattan-based nonprofit established and financed by Shanghai-based magnate Neville “Roy” Singham, part of his sprawling web of organizations promoting the interests of China and its allies Russia and Iran. Let Cuba Live’s website reveals the involvement of other Singham-linked groups, including CODEPINK — co-founded by his wife, Jodie Evans — and the ANSWER Coalition, both of which spearheaded anti-Israel protests beginning the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace and the Democratic Socialists of America are also signatories, along with well-known left-wing celebrities such as Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters who have long been vocally hostile to Israel.

Read the full story here.

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WAR POWERS RUSH

Reps. Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie plan to force vote on resolution blocking Iran strikes

Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) plan to introduce and attempt to force a vote on a war powers resolution blocking military action against Iran without congressional authorization, as the Trump administration appears to be moving closer to military action against the Islamic Republic, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they’re saying: Khanna framed the legislation as an attempt to block a “disastrous war” with Iran. “Like the votes before the Iraq war, this could be one of the most consequential votes in the history of Congress,” Khanna said. “Are we going to stop another endless dumb foreign war? Or will the neoconservatives mislead us once again?” Once introduced, there will be a waiting period of 15 House session days before the lawmakers can force a vote on the resolution.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

School of Hope: The New York Times’ David Halbfinger and Bilal Shbair spotlight the Academies of Hope network of private schools operating in Gaza, the brainchild of a Palestinian American doctor that is primarily funded by Jewish donors, which provides peace-focused education for 9,000 Palestinian students across five campuses. “Operating schools in any war zone is hard enough, and schools across the enclave are struggling to rebuild. But Dr. Hasan has compounded his challenges. He revamped a much-criticized national curriculum and worked to keep Hamas from endangering his schools. He also verifies that none of his staff have ties to militant groups, a charge Israel has leveled against the United Nations agency caring for Palestinians in Gaza and some international aid groups.” [NYTimes]

Poison PEN: In Tablet, Ari Ingel, executive director of the Creative Community for Peace, raises concerns about PEN America’s commitment to free speech, weeks after the literary organization walked back its condemnation of the cancellation of an event by an Israeli comedian. “The pattern has been consistent: They listen, offer no meaningful response, and then double down on a hostile anti-Zionist and anti-Israel posture. In doing so, PEN America has helped legitimize antisemitic discrimination at a moment when antisemitism in the United States is at historic levels. This is not an isolated failure of judgment, but a structural rot in the organization, one that reflects leadership choices, institutional culture, and a governing board that has failed to intervene.” [Tablet]

Sports Talk: The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik reflects on the recent sports successes of Israeli NBA star Deni Avdija and Israel’s first Olympic bobsled team, juxtaposed with the pushback they’ve faced from Israel critics. “But the sight of a Jew excelling in sports is even more than a bit of representational inspiration. So much of antisemitism, historic and resurgent, is bound up with demeaning Jews as genetically inferior — at the top line with Hitler and those infamous Olympics 90 years ago but also much more casually, in easy jokes and schoolyard assumptions, in the implication that genetic makeup makes Jews less athletic.” [HollywoodReporter]

Word on the Street

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and the Israel Airports Authority disputed Tucker Carlson‘s claim that he was detained and interrogated by Ben Gurion Airport security while at the airport for an interview with the ambassador; the IAA said that “Carlson and his party were politely asked a few routine questions, in accordance with standard procedures applied to many travelers” and that the questioning took place “in a separate room within the VIP lounge solely to protect their privacy and to avoid conducting such a discussion in public”…

Democratic Majority for Israel’s PAC announced its endorsement of 11 congressional candidates, including Cait Conley in NY-17, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in PA-8, Janelle Stelson in PA-10, and former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) in VA-2; the group also announced it is backing Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller in IL-2 and former Rep. Melissa Bean in IL-8, but is staying out of the contentious IL-9 Democratic primary, where AIPAC’s super PAC is backing state Sen. Laura Fine…

A Tennessee man who saved more than 200 Jewish soldiers under his command at a Nazi POW camp in Germany will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by the White House for his efforts; Roddie Edmonds, who was taken captive during the Battle of the Bulge, famously refused to identify Jewish troops when asked by the camp’s commandant, saying, “We are all Jews here”…

An effort to expel Israel from the International Federation of Social Workers failed on Wednesday in a closed-door Zoom meeting; a second vote, on suspending Israel, also failed, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

American, Israeli and African officials gathered with little fanfare but big plans on Wednesday, coming together in Rwanda for the trilateral Kigali Security Summit on issues including technology, innovation and national security, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports…

MS NOW inked an agreement with Crooked Media that will create a new weekly show, titled “Crooked on MS NOW,” that will compile content from the podcast and media company’s shows, including “Pod Save America” and “Pod Save the World”… 

Bari Weiss withdrew from the University of California, Los Angeles’ upcoming annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, reportedly citing security concerns…

Chicago and DePaul University police are investigating an incident that occurred at a cafe in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in which students from three Chicago-area schools said they were harassed while at a meetup for Jewish students at the Olive & Oak Cafe near DePaul’s campus…

An Australian man who pleaded guilty to publicly inciting hatred for antisemitic remarks he made last month at a Sydney rally against immigration was sentenced to a year in jail, with the chance for parole in October…

The U.S. is withdrawing its remaining 1,000 troops from Syria, with plans for the U.S.’ decade-long presence to fully end over the next two months…

Pic of the Day

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz attended a Security Council meeting on Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, during which he defended President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, a day ahead of the board’s gathering.

Birthdays

Actor who played the young autistic Jacob “Jake” Bohm in the Fox TV series “Touch,” later portraying a young Bruce Wayne in another Fox series “Gotham,” David Mazouz turns 25…

2004 Nobel Prize laureate in physics, he is a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, David Jonathan Gross turns 85… Former chairman of the board and CEO of Sony Corporation, chairman of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute, Sir Howard Stringer turns 84… Retired co-founder of integrated digital marketing agency Hawkeye / Mosaic, now known as Publicis Hawkeye, Sharon Edelman… President of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology from 2009 until 2019, Peretz Lavie turns 77… Founder and president of the eponymous Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, she is on the boards of the NFL’s NY Giants, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Aspen Institute, Laurie M. Tisch… and also the birthday of her first cousin once removed, co-founder and CEO of Atria (a private medical institute in NYC), Alan Tisch… Managing partner of Encino, Calif.-based Hager Pacific Properties, Adam Tuvia Milstein turns 74… Former Goldman Sachs partner and then a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, he now serves on various corporate and nonprofit boards, Barry L. Zubrow turns 73… International CEO of Taglit Birthright Israel since 2008, Gidi Mark turns 70… Novelist, essayist and short story writer, he was a winner of a 2005 MacArthur genius fellowship, Jonathan Allen Lethem turns 62… Retired U.S. district court judge, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (1993-1994) alongside future justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Gary Scott Feinerman turns 61… SVP of government relations at Las Vegas Sands Corp., Andy Abboud… Co-founder of the band Phish where he is the lead drummer and frequent songwriter, Jon Fishman turns 61… Communications director for 27 years for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), now a consultant, Kevin D. Bishop… Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Yaakov Hagoel turns 55… Canadian media personality, conservative political activist, writer and broadcaster, Ezra Levant turns 54… Partner at InfraStrategies and senior fellow at the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies, Joshua Levi Schank, Ph.D…. Founder of The New York Times‘ “DealBook” and co-creator of Showtime’s “Billions,” Andrew Ross Sorkin turns 49… Hollywood writer and producer, best known for “The Newsroom” (2012) and “Quantico” (2015), Gideon Yago turns 48… Jewish rapper, part of the alternative hip hop group Darshan, better known by his stage name Eprhyme (pronounced “E-Prime”), Eden Daniel Pearlstein turns 46… Writer of the “In the Know” gossip column for The Hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers Congress, D.C.’s social scene, celebrities and politics, Judy Kurtz Altscher… Founder of a Middle East NGO, Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security (ROPES), Ben Birnbaum… Former MLB pitcher for the Phillies (2011-2012), he now runs Big League Advance, a company that invests in minor league players in exchange for a percentage of their future MLB earnings, Michael Schwimer turns 40… Samantha Zalaznick… Tight end for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, he played college football at Harvard, Anthony Firkser turns 31… Daniel Blum…

High-level foreign officials, top diplomats and heads of state will gather in Washington today for the first in-person convening of the Trump administration’s Board of Peace — as U.S. military assets flow into the Middle East and President Donald Trump mulls a potentially weekslong sustained military campaign in Iran.

The gathering, ostensibly focused on the disarmament of Hamas and the establishment of a peace-aligned administration in the Gaza Strip, comes as the U.S. moves dozens of fighter jets and support aircraft to the region — reportedly the largest buildup in military air power since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It’s a split screen befitting the president — who said at his inauguration last year that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” and who has claimed success in negotiating an end to numerous conflicts, as well as the release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Gaza last year — even as the U.S. has used force to enact political change, such as in Venezuela.

But a U.S. operation in Iran would differ significantly from what took place in Venezuela last month. In the place of ousted President Nicolás Maduro is Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president who is now working with the Trump administration. No such natural successor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exists. Behind the supreme leader is a laundry list of equally — if not more — radical hard-liners eager to take the ailing Khamenei’s place. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah of Iran, who has spent most of his life living in exile, has sought to return to Iran to usher the Islamic Republic into a new democratic era — but does not appear to have the on-the-ground support as well as enough legitimacy among Iran’s vast diaspora community. 

The Trump administration continues to signal publicly that it wants to find a diplomatic resolution to the situation in Iran, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying as much at yesterday’s press briefing. 

But the White House is continuing to move forward with preparations for a military confrontation, which could include anything from targeted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to a move toward regime change. Trump met on Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss options for Iran.

Rubio is set to travel to Israel on Feb. 28, an announcement that could signal that strikes are not imminent — or that could be a ruse by the administration. 

Recall that in June, Trump gave Iran a two-week deadline to resume talks, choosing to strike the country’s nuclear facilities just three days later.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — whose country is participating in military exercises with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps today in the Strait of Hormuz — warned against renewed strikes targeting Iran.

Iran is also preparing for a potential military conflict, fortifying its nuclear sites and reviving a chain of command that empowers lower-level military officials.

A month ago, as the world teetered on the edge of another U.S.-Iran military confrontation, diplomacy won out, and the parties agreed to talks. Now, Washington and Tehran — as well as Jerusalem — find themselves again on the brink. The next big decision belongs to Trump.

The Palestinian Authority’s proposed interim constitution, a draft of which was released last week, includes support for incarcerated and deceased Palestinian terrorists and their families, a practice called “pay for slay” by its critics, which the PA claimed to have ended last year.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas published the interim constitution on Feb. 10, allowing for public comments over the next 60 days. The move comes as the Trump administration and the European Union have demanded reforms from the PA in recent months, including an end to the so-called “martyrs’ payments” to convicted and killed terrorists and their families.

Article 24 of the interim constitution states that “the State of Palestine and the relevant national institutions work to provide protection and care for the families of martyrs, and the wounded, and prisoners, and those released from the occupation prisons, and the victims of genocide.” 

Article 44 states that “the law organizes the provision of comprehensive care for the families of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners, and those released, in preservation of their national dignity and their humanitarian and living needs.” 

“Martyrs” refers broadly to any Palestinian killed by Israelis, but historically the payments have gone to the families of those killed or imprisoned attempting to commit or committing acts of terror. The longer the sentence, the greater the payments, thus creating an incentive to kill more Israelis.

Israel, the U.S., EU and others have said the policy incentivizes terrorism. The Taylor Force Act, which was signed into law in 2018, bars the U.S. from sending most aid to the PA until the policy ends; an Israeli law passed the same year docks the equivalent of the funds paid annually from taxes and tariffs Israel collects on the PA’s behalf.

Palestinian law characterizes the payments as ensuring a “dignified life” for “partici[pants] in the struggle against the occupation.” The minimum payments are greater than government assistance provided to low-income families and above average for employees of the PA.

The PA has repeatedly made commitments to its Western benefactors to stop the payments to terrorists and their families, amounting to over $1 billion in recent years, but ultimately changed the funding process rather than ending it. 

Abbas dismissed the Palestinian finance minister in November for continuing the payments, though Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Abbas at the time of being complicit and trying to “fool the world.” 

Maurice Hirsch, the former director of IDF military prosecution in the West Bank and the head of the PA Accountability and Reform Initiative at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told Jewish Insider that “the fact that the draft constitution of the PA includes its commitment to ‘pay for slay’ was not in any way surprising.”

“This is something which has become a fundamental element of all PA governments,” he added. “It’s a commitment that the PA in all its different levels starting from Abbas all the way down has simply entrenched in all of Palestinian society. I don’t believe that there actually is a Palestinian leader who will have the ability to say, ‘We will no longer pay any rewards to the terrorists.'”

The payments, Hirsch said, are “in the draft constitution [as] part of the Palestinian ethos in the same way as you see their commitment to expunging the Jewish presence in Israel and same way you see the commitment to the return of every single one of the refugees, as it were, to Israel to destroy Israel demographically.”

The PA draft constitution begins with a preamble that accuses Israel — without mentioning the Jewish state by name — of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It states that “Palestine is the cradle of heavenly religions,” mentioning only Islam and Christianity, not Judaism. “Jerusalem,” the constitution states, “is the capital of the State of Palestine,” which is “committed to preserving [Jerusalem’s] religious character and protecting its Islamic and Christian sanctities.” Islam is the official religion of the PA, while “Christianity has its status in Palestine, and its followers’ rights are respected,” but there is no mention of Judaism.

The document also states that “the permanent headquarters of the House of Representatives is in the city of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine,” though the Palestinian Parliament is currently located in Ramallah. 

The Palestinian interim constitution not only seeks to extend its laws into Israel in its articles about Jerusalem, but also in “ensuring the right of return.” In Palestinian parlance, “the right of return” generally means returning to any place in which an Arab lived in Israel before 1948, though Abbas has, in the past, expressed a willingness to compromise.  “The dream of return remains alive in the hearts of Palestinians everywhere, generation after generation,” the constitution states. 

The United Nations this week elevated an Iranian official to a senior leadership role and publicly congratulated Tehran on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution — moves that former Trump administration officials and Middle East policy analysts say reflect a troublingly conciliatory posture by the international body toward a regime accused of violently repressing its own people.

On Tuesday, the UN elected Abbas Tajik of the Islamic Republic of Iran as vice chair of its Commission for Social Development, a body tasked with advancing policies on poverty eradication, employment and social inclusion. The commission recently adopted resolutions focused on social justice, gender equality and combating gender-based violence — issues critics note remain acute inside Iran, where legal, social and cultural restrictions continue to limit women’s rights and political freedoms.

The following day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres congratulated Iran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution — the founding moment of the regime now facing widespread domestic unrest — weeks after authorities violently suppressed nationwide protests, imposed internet blackouts and oversaw a crackdown that, according to human rights groups, has resulted in thousands of deaths.

Guterres’ message was condemned by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which posted on X that the gesture represented a “moral failure.”

“History will not remember your speeches. It will remember the regimes you chose to honor,” the statement read. “Sending congratulations to the Islamic Revolution regime — a state built on repression and terror — is not neutrality.”

Critics argue that the juxtaposition of congratulatory gestures and leadership appointments raises broader questions about institutional coherence and moral clarity — particularly as Iran continues to face internal unrest and international scrutiny.

Jason Greenblatt, a former White House Middle East envoy under President Donald Trump, told Jewish Insider that Iran’s latest promotion “tells you all you need to know about what the UN stands for.”

“It’s a bloated, broken, perhaps irredeemable system, and a colossal waste of money,” said Greenblatt.

Elliott Abrams, the former U.S. special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, agreed, calling the UN a “morally bankrupt institution.” 

“The secretary general congratulating the Iranian regime just days after it murdered thousands of its citizens is another example,” said Abrams.  

However, Abrams also described the situation as more nuanced, noting that other parts of the UN have taken a firmer stance.

He pointed to a Jan. 26 resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council condemning the Iranian regime’s crackdown. During that session, Sara Hossain, chair of the U.N.’s fact-finding mission on Iran, described unfolding events in Tehran as “the deadliest crackdown against the Iranian people since the 1979 revolution.”

“The violent repression of the Iranian people doesn’t solve the country’s problems,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at the time. “On the contrary, it creates conditions for further human rights violations, instability, and bloodshed.”

Still, several foreign policy analysts argued that the UN’s repeated elevation of Iran is misguided and at odds with the intended goals of the organization. David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, suggested the UN’s actions are a pattern of hypocrisy, noting that the organization has previously elected Tehran to committees despite its poor track record on human rights.

In 2023, Tehran was elected to the UN Committee on Disarmament and International Security. However it was during the same time that Iran was significantly accelerating its nuclear weapons program.

Tehran was also elected by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2021 to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a group responsible for empowering women and promoting gender equality. Former Vice President Kamala Harris supported a U.S-led effort in 2022 to oust Iran from the committee, calling out its “denial of women’s rights and brutal crackdown on its own people.” 

Experts said the UN’s latest elevation of Tehran was not unexpected. Still, they argued that the continuation of this pattern is deeply troubling and reflects a broader institutional posture toward the Iranian regime.

“All of this would be laughably absurd if it wasn’t so actively counterproductive, both in terms of isolating Iran’s regime and, more fundamentally, what the UN supposedly stands for in founding documents like the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

Ruhe argued that the UN treats Iran as a “normal” member in “good standing,” creating what he described as a “dangerous equivalence between Tehran and Washington.”

“Promoting Iran to vice chair, and inviting its foreign minister to address the UN Human Rights Council, bestows a veneer of legitimacy on a regime that just brutally violated its citizens’ right to peaceful protest — a core right recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Ruhe said. “The UN is extending olive branches that rehabilitate Tehran at the exact moment it should be a pariah on par with North Korea.”

David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, similarly argued that the UN has become a venue for Iran and other authoritarian governments to “launder their human rights records.”

“People are noticing the absurdity of the UN secretary-general congratulating the Islamic Republic on the anniversary of seizing power because it comes one month after the Tehran regime killed as many as tens of thousands of protesters,” May said.

He added that “when the spotlight is not on Tehran’s tyranny, the United Nations treats Iran like any other country.”

“If the United Nations wants to escape its reputation as a den of dictators, it should disinvite Iran’s foreign minister from addressing the opening of the Human Rights Council on February 23,” May said. “Otherwise, this will provide another opportunity for a human rights abuser to mask its violations by launching attacks against the United States and its allies.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) urged the Trump administration Thursday to investigate reports that a clique of ideologically driven staffers at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had launched an anti-Israel “working group” inside the agency.

In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the upstate lawmaker decried reports that employees had met during work hours at the city bureaucracy’s Queens headquarters. 

Stefanik raised the possibility the department’s federal funding might have gone toward a prohibited political purpose — or that the gathering may have violated civil rights protections by creating a discriminatory environment for Jewish New Yorkers.

“The use of federal funds to support or tolerate government-sponsored activities that veer into ideological advocacy or that risk emboldening hate is a grave matter with civil rights and public safety implications,” Stefanik wrote. 

The letter requested Kennedy’s agency probe four questions: whether any federal resources went toward enabling the working group, whether it created a hostile context for Jewish employees and service recipients, whether higher-ups in the agency were aware or approved of its establishment and activities and whether HHS action against the agency is appropriate. Stefanik further asked for a briefing within 30 days on the federal department’s findings.

Neither HHS nor the Mamdani administration immediately replied to requests for comment.

For a brief moment on Wednesday, it looked like Iran talks were off. Tehran wanted to move their location from Turkey to Oman and narrow the scope of the negotiations to its nuclear program. The Trump administration saw this as a bad sign, and anonymous American officials began leaking to the media that Iran wasn’t taking the negotiations seriously.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that the negotiations were uncertain in remarks to the press at the Critical Minerals Ministerial, a conference of 43 foreign and other ministers: “As far as the talks are concerned, I think the Iranians had agreed to a certain format. For whatever reason, it changed … We’ll see if we can get back to the right place. The U.S. is prepared to meet them,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump relayed a warning to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a prerecorded interview with NBC News: “I would say he should be very worried.”

It didn’t take long – just over two hours, to be precise – between the news of the apparent collapse of talks between the U.S. and Iran and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s announcement on X that they were back on: “Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat on about 10 am Friday.” Anonymous American sources then confirmed to various media that negotiations were set to take place, after leaders of Arab and Muslim countries urged the Trump administration to give them a chance, despite Iran’s prevarications.

Still, Araghchi’s statement alludes to one of the major reasons that the talks were, briefly, called off: Are they only “nuclear talks” or are they about a range of malign behavior by the Islamic Republic? 

The Iranian answer to that question is clear, but the Trump administration sent mixed messages.

The Trump interview with NBC provided few clues. The president expressed support for the protesters against the Iranian regime, saying “we’ve had their back.” 

Yet, in a bit of revisionist history, he portrayed his recent threats to Iran as being solely about the nuclear file: “They were thinking of starting a new [nuclear] site in a different part of the country. We found out about it and said, ‘you do that, we’re going to do very bad things to you,'” Trump said. He didn’t mention ballistic missiles in the interview.

Rubio, however, specified that “as far as the topics [of negotiations] and what the agenda needs to be, I think that in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles, that includes the sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region, that includes the nuclear program and that includes the treatment of their own people.”

“Beyond that,” Rubio said, “the president retains a number of options as to how to respond to [the violent crackdown on protesters] and future events.”

Vice President JD Vance told Megyn Kelly that stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was the main concern: “In a perfect world, would I love it if a bunch of freedom-loving Iranians… had a government that was much more friendly to the United States of America? Would that be a good thing? Absolutely.”

“But fundamentally,” he added, “the president has been focused …  on this question of ensuring that they don’t get a nuclear weapon. .. I feel 100% confident that even if the Iranians were rushing toward a nuclear weapon, they couldn’t get one during the Trump administration. But we’re not thinking about the next three years; we’re thinking about the next 30 years.” 

Vance argued that “global nuclear proliferation” is “the biggest threat to the world,” and as such, Trump is seeking to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons so that other countries in the region do not seek to attain them, as well, and is willing to work with unfriendly countries like Russia and China to achieve that because it is “the most important thing you can do for peace and stability.” 

The lack of clarity is reason for concern in Jerusalem, where the line on any potential American agreement with Iran, going back to the Obama-era negotiations, has long been zero enrichment and extensive limitations on ballistic missiles and regional proxy activity. 

Israel regarded U.S.-Iran negotiations with deep skepticism even before the latest bumps on the road to Oman, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff during his visit to Israel on Tuesday that “Iran proved time after time that its promises cannot be trusted.” Talks that do not include missiles and proxies will likely be viewed with alarm. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined on Wednesday what the Trump administration views as the minimum requirements for successful nuclear negotiations with Iran, insisting that any deal with Tehran be comprehensive and address its ballistic missile capabilities, support for regional terrorism and repression of its people, in addition to the nuclear issue.

“In order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things,” Rubio said during his remarks at an event on critical minerals supply chains, which Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attended. “That includes the range of their ballistic missiles, that includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region, that includes the nuclear program and that includes the treatment of their own people.”

U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet Friday for talks aimed at negotiating a new nuclear agreement, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff leading the delegations. While Iran has insisted the discussions be limited strictly to its nuclear program, the United States has pushed to include Tehran’s ballistic missile capabilities and support for regional proxy groups.

Iran has also demanded that the meeting location be moved from Turkey to Oman and that talks take place in a strictly bilateral format, excluding Arab mediators. Rubio acknowledged the shift on Wednesday, saying Washington remains prepared to engage despite the uncertainty.

“The Iranians had agreed to a certain format and for whatever reasons changed in their system,” Rubio said. “We’ll see if we can get back to the right place, but the United States is prepared to meet with them.”

The diplomatic maneuvering has unfolded against a backdrop of heightened military tensions between the two parties in recent days. On Tuesday, a U.S. F-35 fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone aggressively approaching the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.

Later that day, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deployed two fast-attack boats and a drone towards a U.S.-flagged commercial tanker, the Stena Imperative, in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials said the IRGC appeared to be attempting to potentially seize the vessel before a U.S. missile destroyer intervened and escorted the tanker out of the area.

Israel has voiced skepticism over the prospects of renewed talks. During White House envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Israel on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that “Iran proved time after time that its promises cannot be trusted,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Experts have also questioned whether negotiations with Tehran could lead to a meaningful outcome. Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, previously told Jewish Insider that the Trump administration’s demands that Iran abandon its nuclear program, cap its missile program, halt support for regional proxies and terrorism and stop executing its people are “nonstarters for the regime.”

Should negotiations falter, experts have warned that U.S. military action against Iran remains a possibility. Rubio said that President Donald Trump retains “a number of options” for responding to “future events.” 

Rubio also touched on what he described as fundamental differences between the despotic Iranian regime and the Iranian people, underscoring that Washington’s strategy is focused on confronting the regime rather than civilians.

“I remind everybody what I’ve been saying through my entire career in public service: the Iranian people and the Iranian regime are very unalike,” Rubio said. “This is a culture with deep history. I know of no other country where there’s a bigger difference between the people that lead the country and the people who live there.”

He added that the regime’s priorities remain a central obstacle to improving living conditions for Iranians.

“One of the reasons why the Iranian regime cannot provide the people of Iran the quality of life that they deserve is because they’re spending all their money,” Rubio said. “They’re spending all their resources, of what is a rich country, sponsoring terrorism, sponsoring all these proxy groups around the world, exporting, as they call it, a revolution.”

Despite the Trump administration’s willingness to diplomatically engage with Iranian officials, leading Middle East experts told Jewish Insider on Monday that military action against Tehran still remains a very real possibility.

“I can’t tell you what I’m going to do,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday evening when asked about the threshold for an Iran strike. 

“We have a tremendous force going there [to the Middle East], just like we did in Venezuela,” said Trump. “I’d like to see a deal negotiated. But right now, we’re talking to [Iran] and if we could work something out, that’d be great. If we can’t, probably bad things will happen.”

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday to discuss a potential new nuclear agreement, according to reports. Jared Kushner, who has played a key role in recent high-profile diplomatic negotiations, is also expected to attend, alongside the foreign ministers of Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in the first meeting between the U.S. and Iran since U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last June.

The planned talks come as the administration continues to exert pressure on Tehran — in response to Iran’s violent crackdown on protesters last month, Trump has publicly weighed the possibility of U.S. military intervention, ordering the movement of additional military assets into the region and issuing a series of stark warnings on social media indicating that U.S. forces are “ready, willing and able to rapidly fulfill [their] mission, with speed and violence” should a deal fail to be made. 

While the administration has emphasized diplomacy as its preferred path, analysts caution that negotiations do not necessarily signal that the U.S. will not strike.

“Military intervention remains likely in light of President Trump’s demonstrated willingness to use force and the U.S. military buildup in the region,” said Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum. “Given the gulf between the American and Iranian positions and the general hard-line position of the Iranian regime on nuclear issues, it is hard to tag a nuclear deal as a likely outcome.” 

Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI that a strike does remain on the table. She said that a deal could be difficult to reach and the upcoming meeting in Istanbul is unlikely to yield meaningful results or concessions from Iran. 

“The planned meeting is likely a diplomatic box-checking exercise and smokescreen to enable a continued U.S. military buildup before Trump authorizes strikes,” Stricker said. “The administration’s demands that Iran abandon nuclear enrichment, cap its missile program, and halt support for regional proxies and terrorism, as well as stop executing its people, are nonstarters for the regime.”

Koplow said the administration’s “mixed signals” on whether it will seek diplomacy or take military action are likely “not a ruse or a diversion,” but instead a signal that Trump “has not actually made up his mind” and is “unsure what his end goal is.”

Jason Greenblatt, who served as White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, asserted that “there’s no mixed signals,” arguing that the president’s messaging has been clear. 

“President Trump has made the choice clear: a real, enforceable deal that ends Iran’s nuclear and missile threats and protects the U.S., our allies, and the Iranian people — or decisive action,” said Greenblatt, who emphasized that while Trump is reluctant to engage in war, the president will not accept an agreement he views as insufficient.

“He is not a war president,” Greenblatt said, “but he will not accept a weak deal. Iran’s leadership should understand by now that President Trump means exactly what he says.”

Stricker also noted that Trump has consistently sought to avoid prolonged conflict, but argued that Iran’s internal repression and continued nuclear advances may push the president toward decisive action. On Saturday, satellite images revealed new activity at Iranian nuclear sites, a potential sign that Tehran is aiming to salvage remaining materials from the June strikes. 

“President Trump favors stability and prioritizes ending violence in global affairs,” she said. “After achieving the defanging of Tehran’s nuclear program, the regime has shown it remains a threat — the ongoing massacre is too much for Trump to tolerate as the leader of the free world.” “The president will likely ensure the regime pays a price, but whether the price is regime change remains to be seen,” she added.

When detailing what potential U.S. military intervention could look like, Koplow said that it would likely be “limited” in scope.  

“Any U.S. action is likely going to fall short of what the Israelis would like to see, which is a campaign that doesn’t stop until the regime has fallen,” said Koplow. “Trump seems to favor quick strikes, and he is also facing wall-to-wall opposition from Arab states regarding the prospects of a long campaign that destabilizes the region and damages prospects for trade, investment, and growth.”

However, other analysts read the shift to negotiations as a signal that intervention is increasingly unlikely. Jonathan Ruhe, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America told JI that U.S. military action is “unlikely for the moment.”

“An even bigger concern now is that military action could be off the table indefinitely, in a way it wasn’t just a day or two ago, as renewed talks now seem more likely,” said Ruhe. 

Ruhe also noted that a key indicator of Trump’s intentions will be “how long he keeps the ‘armada’ within striking distance,” referring to the U.S. military assets in the region. He added that negotiating with Tehran will likely result in an unfavorable outcome for the U.S. 

“Negotiating with Iran is absolutely the worst possible option for the United States now, because Iran’s regime will go from being on the ropes to thinking it prevailed,” said Ruhe, noting that Tehran is unlikely to agree to an “acceptable deal,” instead using the “prospect of talks to stave off military threats.”

“[Iran] is trying to do what it always does, playing for time and seeing what concessions it can wrangle without ever giving up anything itself,” Ruhe added. “This leaves zero upside for the U.S., since Iran is too emboldened to agree to serious concessions. There’s plenty of downside, too, since U.S. credibility would be dangerously eroded in Tehran’s eyes if Trump fails to fulfill his earlier threats.”

Koplow said Jerusalem is also concerned about a potential nuclear deal and is likely to perceive Iran’s willingness to enter talks as a way of “dragging out the process indefinitely.”

“[The Israelis] are concerned that Trump will back off his threats to take action or end up signing a deal that falls short of addressing the entire basket of issues — nuclear, missiles, and proxies,” said Koplow. 

Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, had said Tehran would strike Israel in response to any U.S. military action, in an interview with the Lebanese-based Al Mayadeen.

Stricker warned that any agreement that falls short of dismantling the regime’s power structure and fails to address key issues would be problematic not only for the U.S. and Israel, but for the Iranian public.

“Any deal with the Islamic Republic would represent a historic betrayal of the Iranian people,” Stricker said. “The only negotiation America should entertain with Tehran is the exit of top regime officials from Iran and their relinquishing of power prior to an orderly transition to democracy.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, alleged on Friday that the Trump administration sidestepped standard congressional review procedures to fast-track a $6 billion arms sale to Israel.

“Just one hour before doing so, the Trump Administration informed me it would disregard Congressional oversight and years of standing practice, and immediately notify over $6 billion dollars in arms sales to Israel,” Meeks said in a statement.

Traditionally, the top members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are given advance notice of arms sales and are able to informally place holds on them before formal notification of such sales is sent to Congress. Meeks has, at times, temporarily placed such holds on sales to Israel during the war in Gaza, seeking additional information or assurances.

“Shamefully, this is now the second time the Trump Administration has blatantly ignored long-standing Congressional prerogatives while also refusing to engage Congress on critical questions about the next steps in Gaza and broader U.S.-Israel policy,” Meeks said.

He added that the administration has refused to provide the committee with briefings with White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff or other senior administration officials and failed to provide a reason for bypassing standard procedures.

“In the United States we do not have kings — we are a democracy rooted in the Constitution, governed by laws,” Meeks continued. “Our founding fathers enshrined Congress’ role first in our Constitution — in Article I. Through his actions, President Trump has again made abundantly clear his disregard for Congress as a coequal branch of government and for the American people we represent.”

He also criticized Republican colleagues for not speaking out about the Trump administration’s moves.

The sale to Israel, announced by the administration on Friday, includes dozens of Apache attack helicopters, light utility helicopters, more than 3,000 light tactical vehicles and power packs for Namer armored personnel carriers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The proposed sale will enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders, vital infrastructure, and population centers,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement. “This proposed sale will increase interoperability with U.S. forces and conveys U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and armed forces modernization. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces.”

The Pentagon said the sale “will not alter the basic military balance in the region.”

The administration also notified Congress of a $9 billion sale of Patriot interceptor missiles planned to Saudi Arabia.

The weapons in question would likely not be delivered to either country for multiple years.

A burgeoning legal battle between the University of Pennsylvania and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission escalated last week when the Ivy League university called the agency’s methods of investigating whether the school permitted an antisemitic work environment “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” 

The EEOC subpoenaed the university to turn over lists of Jewish employees and members of Jewish organizations, along with detailed identifying and contact information, saying the information is needed for the agency to contact potential victims of antisemitic discrimination. The university’s president and trustees — with the support of Jewish campus organizations Hillel, Chabad and Meor, as well as the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia — refused to do so. 

Handing over those names would disregard “the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university asserted in a legal filing last Tuesday. 

What may appear to be an arcane legal issue illuminates the tension at the heart of the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to combating campus antisemitism, with even some of the victims of that discrimination concerned that the methods of countering it have gone too far. While the EEOC said it is committed to doing whatever it can to investigate antisemitism among faculty and staff of the elite university, Jewish faculty and students see something worrisome.

“We are deeply concerned that the EEOC is now seeking lists of individuals identified as Jewish, including their personal home addresses, phone numbers, and private emails, based solely on their affiliation with Jewish organizations on campus — and without their consent,” Hillel and Meor wrote in a social media post in November. “Across history, the compelled cataloging of Jews has been a source of profound danger, and collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries.” 

Why does the EEOC, which examines complaints of discrimination and civil rights violations at American workplaces, want Penn to provide the lists of Jewish university affiliates? And why are Jewish faculty members — including some who support the federal government’s efforts to investigate antisemitism at their place of work — urging their employer not to comply? 

The dispute dates back to December 2023, when the EEOC pledged to investigate whether Jewish employees at Penn had been subjected “to an unlawful hostile work environment.” 

The inquiry was opened the same week that then-Penn President Liz Magill testified before Congress about her handling of antisemitism at the Philadelphia university in the weeks that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. The investigation continued quietly for nearly two years, overseen by EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who last year was appointed chair of the agency by President Donald Trump. 

It spilled into public view in November when the EEOC filed suit against Penn, seeking to force the university to finally compile and hand over the lists of Jewish faculty members and students that the EEOC said are crucial to its investigation. 

The sought-after lists would include the members of all Jewish clubs and student groups, the names of everyone who participated in confidential university listening sessions about antisemitism, faculty members who were criticized and doxxed in a social media post from an anti-Israel student group and all employees and faculty of the Jewish studies program. Karen McDonough, deputy director of the EEOC’s Philadelphia office, said in a legal filing that the university’s refusal to turn over the lists has “severely hampered” the investigation. 

Penn disagrees. The university called the demand “not only disconcerting but entirely unnecessary,” pledging instead that it would send a message to all university employees telling them how to get in touch with the EEOC to share instances of antisemitism they experienced or witnessed. The university said it has “cooperated extensively” with the agency by turning over more than 100 documents. 

A more typical investigation might involve agency officials interviewing people who issued complaints directly with the agency, then visiting the campus and publicizing their investigation, according to Samuel Bagenstos, a law professor at the University of Michigan with expertise in employment law. 

“If there are those claims that should be followed up, they should definitely be followed up, and they should be followed up according to usual investigative practices and not this dragnet of, ‘Let’s compile a list of all the Jews at Penn,’” Bagenstos told Jewish Insider last week. “It’s an incredibly unusual, if not completely unprecedented, request. It’s not tailored at all to any particular allegations of discrimination.” 

An EEOC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

The agency appeared to follow a similar playbook last year when it investigated antisemitism among staff at Columbia University and the affiliated Barnard College. Employees from both institutions received text messages from the EEOC on their personal phones asking them to fill out a survey identifying whether they are Jewish or Israeli, and if they have faced antisemitic harassment. 

In that case, university officials had agreed to hand over employee data. Columbia’s associate general counsel and deputy general counsel told the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper, that the university complied with a subpoena to share employee information with the EEOC. But because the dispute ended in July with a settlement — and not with legal action — the EEOC’s methods of information-gathering at Columbia and Barnard never became public. (Columbia agreed to pay $21 million to resolve antisemitism charges.)

The Penn faculty members and employees opposed to the efforts by the federal government to obtain the controversial lists are not saying that the university is free from antisemitism. The Penn Faculty Alliance to Combat Antisemitism, which formed after Oct. 7 in response to rising anti-Jewish antagonism on campus, filed a brief supporting the university, and its members said that while they want to see the EEOC’s efforts to combat antisemitism at Penn continue, they oppose the methods being used by the agency.

“While the Alliance supports the EEOC’s efforts to combat antisemitism at Penn, its members are gravely concerned that the scope of the EEOC subpoena, which effectively seeks full lists of Jewish individuals at Penn and their personal information, invokes the troubling historical persecution of Jews, and threatens the personal security of the Alliance’s members,” the group wrote in a legal filing last week. 

As the case moves forward in federal court, Penn and the EEOC are poised to test the boundaries of how far a civil rights investigation can go in the name of protecting a vulnerable group.

The Trump administration labeled three Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations, including chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. 

The move follows an executive order President Donald Trump signed in November, which tasked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with identifying whether branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt should be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and which should be deemed Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Those determinations were released on Tuesday: Jordanian and Egyptian branches were placed under the category of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), with the State Department citing their provision of “material support to Hamas.”

Meanwhile, the organization’s branch in Lebanon received the more stringent label of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a stronger categorization that makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. The organization’s leader in Lebanon, Muhammad Fawzi Taqqosh, was named an SDGT. 

“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider that while the organization poses a threat in all three countries, Lebanon’s determination was “more far reaching.”

“In the case of Lebanon, you can see why it’s been singled out, because the Lebanese chapter was directly involved in violence in the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel,” said Fitton-Brown. “In the case of the Jordanian and Egyptian chapters, they’re not necessarily a lesser threat, but the State Department evidently didn’t find enough information to justify a finding that they are a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

Fitton-Brown added that this is just the “beginning” of the process, noting that the administration has moved “pretty quickly” and there is potentially “more to follow.” 

“I understand that there is still interest in the [administration] in other chapters,” said Fitton-Brown. “This could be the first of a number of initiatives. We might see an initiative that looks at other specific chapters. One that’s been mentioned is Yemen, another that’s been mentioned is Libya.”

Dr. Charles Small, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy, praised Trump and Rubio’s efforts, stating that the administration has taken an “enormous step to confront the threat the the Muslim Brotherhood poses around the world.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood works from within open and free societies to subvert the values that America and other Western democracies cherish, while advocating for the subjugation of women, the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, and the murder of Jews,” said Small. “We are hopeful that these vital efforts will continue, and ISGAP will keep supporting executive and legislative actions in Washington that aim to dismantle the Brotherhood’s networks and stop its continuing plan to undermine our way of life.”

Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at what the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could mean for Iran’s influence in South America, and report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first days in office, which included the revocation of executive orders on supporting Israel and combating antisemitism. We have the exclusive on AIPAC’s appointment of Deryn Sousa as the organization’s new spokesperson, succeeding Marshall Wittmann, and report on Jewish communal priorities on Capitol Hill in the new year. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Julie Menin, Rabbi Zvi Hershcovich and Este Haim.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider 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

• As Congress returns this week, we’ll be keeping an eye on the Hill’s response to the ongoing wave of protests across Iran, the ripple effects of the Trump administration’s arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the emerging rift among the U.S.’ Gulf allies. 
• Following the winter break, lawmakers’ top priority now will be finalizing a deal on government funding before the end-of-month deadline. It’s looking less likely that we’ll see a repeat of last year’s extended government shutdown. There are still plenty of areas to be negotiated between the two chambers, including security grant funding, United Nations funding and funding levels for U.S.-Israel cooperative programs.
• We’re keeping an eye on the ongoing protests in Iran. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One last night, President Donald Trump reiterated his recent comments that the U.S. would intervene if Iranian officials were to kill protesters, having said on his Truth Social site on Friday that “If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” 
• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is scheduled to make his first appearance in U.S. federal court at 12 p.m. ET today, where he will appear before Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Orthodox Jewish federal judge.
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who had been planning a 2026 reelection bid, is set to make an announcement regarding his political future this morning, a day after meeting with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The impromptu press conference comes as Walz’s administration faces criticism and an investigation into widespread fraud centered around the state’s Somali diaspora population.
• U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Syria envoy Tom Barrack is mediating talks in Paris today between senior Israeli and Syrian officials, aimed at reaching a security agreement between the countries.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

As protests continue to spread throughout Iran and the geopolitical repercussions of the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ripple across world capitals, the sentiment around the Middle East and in Washington is that renewed conflict with the Islamic Republic may well be on the horizon.

While smaller than previous nationwide protests in 2019 and 2022, the newest demonstrations come as Iran is facing economic instability, crushing international sanctions and record droughts. The protests that have spread across the country in recent days are the first major demonstrations since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, with an assist from the U.S., last June that damaged the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and further destabilized Iran.

The protests in Iran were already gaining steam at the time a Delta Force team apprehended Maduro and his wife on Saturday and brought them to the U.S. to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. But the Trump administration’s decision to send elite forces into Caracas and forcibly remove Maduro signals to Tehran — as well as Moscow and Beijing — that Washington is taking a tougher approach to regimes it sees as destabilizing and threatening to U.S. interests.

The world is watching this geopolitical high-wire act with wariness. In Israel, officials are closely monitoring the instability in Iran, concerned that the regime in Tehran could move to strike Israel in an effort to consolidate domestic support and quell the protests; Israel could also see a window of opportunity to strike Iran at a weak moment, either of which could reignite warfare between Jerusalem and Tehran.

It was less than a week ago that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and discussed the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program.

In his weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday, Netanyahu addressed Iran in the context of his Palm Beach meeting last week, saying that Israel “reiterated our joint position of zero enrichment on one hand, and the need to remove the 400 kilograms of enriched material from Iran and oversee the sites with tight and genuine supervision.” 

Noting that his sit-down with Trump was taking place as anti-government protests broke out in Iran, Netanyahu added, “The Government of Israel, the State of Israel, and my policy, we identify with the struggle of the Iranian people, with their aspirations for freedom, liberty, and justice. It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”

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

DOMINO EFFECT

Toppling Maduro may weaken Iran’s hold in Latin America

The U.S.’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday is expected to weaken Iran’s terrorism efforts, weapons production and economic activity in Latin America, experts say. With Vice President Delcy Rodriguez taking power — and the Trump administration expressing willingness to work with her — it remains unclear whether Maduro’s regime will largely remain intact with American supervision or if the government will ultimately be replaced by the democratic opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Corina Machado, or someone else, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Expected impact: Emanuele Ottolenghi, senior research fellow at the Center for Research on Terror Financing, told JI that “if the regime remains in place [under Washington’s supervision], there will have to be adjustments in its regional posture and foreign policy. That means, of course, the role that nefarious foreign actors such as China, Russia, Cuba and Iran played in Venezuela will change.” Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JI that “the Iranians turned Venezuela into a strategic hub, and now that has disappeared.”  

Read the full story here.

Bonus: Politico talks to Vandenberg Coalition head Carrie Filipetti, who served as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Cuba and Venezuela during the first Trump administration, about the apprehension of Maduro and potential next steps for the U.S. vis-à-vis its Venezuela policy.

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shifting alliances

Saudi Arabia pivots from moderation

Saudi Arabia is recalibrating its regional posture in ways that are challenging long-held assumptions about Riyadh’s role as a moderating force in the Middle East, as recent moves across Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa expose the country’s widening rift with the United Arab Emirates and a growing alignment with Qatar and Turkey — two countries with openly hostile positions toward Israel, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs, Lahav Harkov and Matthew Shea report.

Series of events: The realignment has been most stark on the issue of Yemen, where Saudi Arabia led an airstrike on an Emirati shipment of vehicles last week that Riyadh claimed was intended for the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), which has consolidated power in the country’s south as Saudi-backed efforts to stabilize the war-torn nation have stalled. Hours after the strike, the Emirati government announced it would withdraw its remaining troops from the country. The Saudis’ decision to embrace Islamist-aligned factions in Sudan, where the UAE is aligned with rival forces, has caused additional fissures with the Emiratis, putting the two U.S. allies and Gulf power players at odds. The Gulf states have also taken opposite sides on Somalia, with the UAE quietly supportive of Somaliland, while Saudi Arabia condemned Israel for recognizing its independence.

Read the full story here.

Qatari condolences: Qatari Education Minister Lolwah Al-Khater publicly mourned the death of Huthayfa Samir Abdullah Al-Kahlout, a senior Hamas military spokesman who served as the public face of the group’s media strategy during the war in Gaza, drawing renewed scrutiny of Qatar’s ties to the militant group, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

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DAY ONE DOOZY

Mamdani slammed for repealing antisemitism executive orders

Newly inaugurated New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for repealing executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams aimed at tackling antisemitism, including implementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions order. The revocation of those orders came as part of a blanket repeal of all of Adams’ executive orders following his September 2024 indictment on federal corruption charges, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Community reaction: In a joint statement, the UJA-Federation of New York, Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, American Jewish Committee of New York, Anti-Defamation League of New York/New Jersey, Agudath Israel of America, the New York Board of Rabbis and the Orthodox Union said that the Jewish community “will be looking for clear and sustained leadership that demonstrates a serious commitment to confronting antisemitism and ensures that the powers of the mayor’s office are used to promote safety and unity, not to advance divisive efforts such as BDS.” The statement continued, “Singling Israel out for sanction is not the way to make Jewish New Yorkers feel included and safe, and will undermine any words to that effect.”

Read the full story here.

Bonus: The New York Times reports that Mamdani’s decision to issue a blanket revocation of Adams’ executive orders was made in an effort to alleviate anger by Jewish groups over the rescinding of the two orders related to Israel and antisemitism.

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EXCLUSIVE

AIPAC appoints Deryn Sousa as spokesperson

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee appointed Deryn Sousa as spokesperson, replacing Marshall Wittmann, who retired at the end of 2025 after 13 years in the role. Sousa steps into the public-facing position during a time when AIPAC is regularly in the spotlight — and as the powerful pro-Israel organization faces outsized criticism from the far left and far right over its influence in the American political system, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Background: Sousa reflects a different career trajectory than that taken by Wittmann, who came to AIPAC toward the end of his career after decades working in politics in Washington, including as communications director for Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). Sousa has worked for AIPAC for a decade, having joined the organization soon after she graduated from the University of Georgia, where she studied Arabic and international affairs. She moved to Washington for the spokesperson role from Houston, where she served until recently as AIPAC’s Southwest regional political director. 

Read the full story here.

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MONEY IN THE BANK

Massie challenger raises $1.2 million in final quarter of 2025

Ed Gallrein, the Republican primary challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) backed by President Donald Trump, said Friday that he had raised $1.2 million in the final quarter of 2025, a sizable sum that puts him in strong financial shape in preparation for a grueling race against Massie. Gallrein’s fundraising haul signals that he’s a more viable candidate than Massie’s previous challengers, and highlights the power of Trump’s endorsement, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Moving against Massie: Trump and his allies have also committed significant resources to the effort to defeat Massie, an isolationist Republican who has frequently opposed legislation to combat antisemitism and has broken with Trump on many key elements of his agenda, including on issues related to Israel and Iran. “This fundraising number reflects the overwhelming support Ed’s campaign has received right out of the gate,” Gallrein spokesperson Lance Trover said in a statement. “President Trump endorsed Ed because he knows Ed is fighting to put America First and will partner with him to unleash our economy, lower taxes, and stop the woke agenda.”

Read the full story here.

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ON THE AGENDA

Security remains Jewish community’s top lobbying priority for 2026

Going into 2026, Jewish community groups said their advocacy priorities for Congress and the federal government remain largely consistent, with a focus across many of the major advocacy organizations on bolstering community security through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and tackling antisemitism online, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

The hurdles: While Congress has increased its attention to Jewish communal issues in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, including a string of high-profile hearings on antisemitism and several bills passed to support Israel and combat Iran, many key legislative priorities for the Jewish community — including bills on antisemitism and substantial increases to annual security funding for nonprofits — have remained stubbornly intractable.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

American Muscle: Politico’s Sophia Cai, Felicia Schwartz, Dasha Burns and Eric Bazail-Eimil posit that the Trump administration is taking a more hawkish approach to foreign policy in its second term. “The Saturday morning raid is a brazen escalation of U.S. involvement in a foreign country that landed the same weekend Trump publicly threatened to defend Iranian demonstrators against their own government. It serves as a fitting coda to Trump’s first year back in power, one marked by dramatically more involvement in foreign conflicts than candidate Trump or first-term Trump predicted. … Still, the move against [Nicolás] Maduro would have been almost unimaginable during Trump’s first term and during the heat of the 2024 campaign, when Trump adopted the views of restrainers who were skeptical of unconditional aid to Ukraine and spoke of the need to stop engaging in ‘forever wars.’” [Politico]

The Ties That Bind: In The Wall Street Journal, Armin Rosen observes the relationship between Somaliland and Israel, the latter of which was the first country to recognize Hargeisa’s independence last month. “Across 1,600 miles of distance, there is a surprisingly deep kinship between Hargeisa and Jerusalem. … Both countries see themselves as global outsiders waging a long campaign for legitimacy and respect. Israeli citizens and products are still banned in dozens of Muslim countries. As an unrecognized state, Somaliland lacks access to the Swift system for clearing international financial transactions, and its government is effectively blocked from borrowing meaningful amounts of money. Like Israel, a poor, war-ravaged and diplomatically isolated desert outpost during its first decades of existence, Somaliland has to find its way without much help.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

The New York Post interviews New York City Councilmember Julie Menin about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as Menin, who is Jewish, is expected to become city council speaker; Menin said she called Mamdani shortly after his revocation of Israel- and antisemitism-related executive orders to express her concern over the moves…

Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate James Fishback is facing resurgent allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a minor who worked at his nonprofit organization in 2022; Fishback called the allegations “completely false”…

Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch interviews Zvi Hershcovich, the Philadelphia-based Chabad rabbi running a digital clubhouse for Jewish hockey fanatics…

The Chabad house in Kathmandu, Nepal, is temporarily closed following a dispute with the building’s landlord; Rabbi Chezki Lifshitz and Rebbetzin Chani Lifshitz are looking for a new site for the Chabad house, which is a popular site for Israeli and Jewish trekkers and gained fame for hosting the largest Passover Seder in the world…

The New York Times reports on efforts to repatriate items that had belonged to Holocaust victims to their descendants…

A new report from the Israel Advanced Technology Industries Association found that more than half of the companies surveyed saw an increase in requests from employees to relocate outside of Israel…

Einav Zangauker, who gained prominence in Israel for her advocacy on behalf of her son, Matan, who was a hostage in Gaza, announced Matan’s engagement to Ilana Gritzewsky; Zangauker was released from Hamas captivity in October 2025, while Gritzewsky, who was also taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, was freed in November 2023…

Former Israeli hostage Romi Gonen recounted multiple incidents of sexual assault during the 471 days she spent in Hamas captivity in Gaza, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12…

The BBC reached a five-figure settlement with an Israeli family from the Gaza envelope whose home a BBC reporting team filmed from without permission in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks…

Egypt and Qatar inked an agreement that will see Doha sending gas to Cairo as Egypt works to diversify its national gas imports… 

Swiss officials identified the bodies of Israeli teenager Charlotte Needham and Jewish sisters Alicia and Diana Gunst, who died in a fire at a Swiss ski resort on New Year’s Eve…

Singer Este Haim married tech entrepreneur Jonathan Levin in a New Year’s Eve wedding in Los Angeles…

eJewishPhilanthropy talks to friends and colleagues of philanthropist Morris Kahn, who died last week at 95…

Former Orthodox Union head Rabbi Julius Berman, who previously served as chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and chair of the board at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, died at 80… Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, died at 96… Holocaust survivor Edward Gastfriend, who was instrumental in the creation of Philadelphia’s Holocaust Memorial Plaza, died at 100… Record executive and political activist Howie Klein died at 77 (read Phil Klein’s obituary for his father in the National Review here)… Journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, the daughter of Amb. Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, died at 35… Former Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-NJ) died at 81… Richard Pollak, the founder and editor of More magazine, died at 91… Piano virtuoso Gary Graffman died at 87… Longtime Upper East Side veterinarian Lewis Berman, whose clientele included the pets of numerous celebrities and high-profile figures, died at 90…

Pic of the Day

Israel’s Noa Szollos finished 28th in the Women’s Slalom race in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup 2025-2026, earning Israel’s first-ever World Cup points in alpine skiing.

Birthdays

Tennis player ranked No. 1 in Israel for most of 2022, Yshai Oliel turns 26..

Author of 10 books including Mitzvah Man and collections of short fiction including Minyan: Ten Interwoven Stories, John Jacob Clayton turns 91… Sports journalist, author and former ombudsman for ESPN, Robert Lipsyte turns 88… NBA superfan who attends over 100 basketball games nationally each season, James F. Goldstein turns 86… Former member of the Knesset for the National Religious Party, Eliyahu Gabai turns 83… Former Philadelphia mayor for eight years, and then another eight years as Pennsylvania’s governor, currently a special counsel at Ballard Spahr, Ed Rendell turns 82… Retired attorney from Latham & Watkins, Paul Israel Meyer… San Diego-based attorney, she served as a member of Congress and as chief of staff for former California Gov. Gray Davis, Lynn Alice Schenk turns 81… Former attorney general of the U.K, now London co-managing partner and chair of the European and Asian litigation practice at Debevoise & Plimpton, Lord Peter Goldsmith turns 76… CEO of Legacy Interactive / Legacy Games, Ariella Lehrer, Ph.D…. Founder and principal of DC-based Mager & Associates, a boutique public policy and advocacy consulting firm, Mimi Mager… Retired chairman of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeYisrael), Daniel “Danny” Atar turns 68… Journalist John F. Solomon turns 59… Actress and television personality, she is best known for her nine seasons on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” Heather Paige Kent Dubrow turns 57… Partner of both the law firm Galper & Goldberg PLLC and the PR firm Trident GMG, Joshua P. Galper… Professional poker player with more than $29 million of winnings, including $10 million at the 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship, Michael Mizrachi turns 45… NYC-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, Oded Tzur turns 42… Founder and creative director of Alsall Studio, a social media and web design firm, Alexandra Lauren Sall…