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More than 1,100 people gathered Monday night at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich. for an event organized by local Jewish groups featuring Reps. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) alongside commentators Dan Senor and Bret Stephens, discussing the rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in political life.
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President Donald Trump dismissed claims from what he called the “radical left morons and lunatics” that Russia and China are aiding Iran, writing in a post on Truth Social that, “if they are, it’s at a very low level, but I don’t believe they are at all.”
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Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said Monday that Lebanese and Israeli leaders expressed to him strong interest in the Michigan Senate race during his trip to the Middle East last week. Lankford said Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who leads the Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement, told him there was now an “extension of [his] party in Michigan.”
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The mother of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed was active in the Muslim Brotherhood while a college student in Egypt in the 1970s, according to 2012 social media posts by El-Sayed’s half-sister reviewed by The Washington Free Beacon. The report comes a day after El-Sayed said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that neither he nor his family had ties to the group.
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American citizens have been detained in Saudi Arabia for photographing recent missile or drone incidents, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh confirmed on Monday, as it warned Americans not to film or share images of intercepted projectiles or impact sites so as not to violate Saudi law.
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British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the suspected plot targeting the U.S.-run RAF Fairford air base was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran” and “almost certainly directed by” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In a joint statement, the U.S., U.K. and 28 partner countries backed Britain’s assessment, condemned Iran’s use of proxies for attacks on Western soil and vowed to identify, disrupt and prosecute those responsible.
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U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said shortly afterward that Britain had sanctioned two Iranian nationals for facilitating or engaging in hostile activity on behalf of the Iranian regime and summoned Iran’s ambassador over threats on British soil. Miliband said the individuals intended to threaten, plan or carry out attacks overseas.
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Miliband agreed on Monday to host an inaugural meeting of ministers from seven countries aimed at launching a new international task force to combat antisemitism, at the request of the J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism.
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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the TRENDS conference that Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is “tragically bad for the United States of America,” while warning that Republicans are still “in trouble” heading into the midterms. Pompeo said the 2028 election will bring an “ideological battle” over the direction of the Republican Party and said he hopes to play a role in shaping it.
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A teenager was killed and 24 others were injured Monday when an unexploded Hezbollah cluster munition detonated during a school hike in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, according to an initial IDF review. The IDF said the munition had remained in the area from an earlier Hezbollah attack and that the incident remains under investigation.
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Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Washington, D.C., home early Monday reportedly as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into immigration issues. The Justice Department confirmed that Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant but did not disclose further details; Omar has previously denied allegations of immigration fraud.
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Last Thursday’s Michigan Senate debate, where Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed framed Israel as a threat to the United States comparable to Iran and said he would not vote to send defensive aid to Israel even if it were under fire, proved to be a breaking point for some Jewish Democrats who were holding out hope that the Democratic nominee would moderate his views in the general election.
Community leaders said that they’re hearing from some previously undecided Jewish Democrats that, after they debate, they now plan to back Republican Mike Rogers.
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Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed departs with his wife, Sarah Jukaku (R) after a press conference on August 5, 2026.
Worthy Reads
Articles and items across the web that are worth reading
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Piker's Polemic
The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait does a deep dive into the ideology of antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. “Alongside his pro-Marxist-Leninist principles, the second pillar of Piker’s worldview is anti-Zionism. This does not distinguish him from other progressives. What does distinguish him is his belief that American Jews who do not share his position deserve punishment. … There is little reason to trust his current self-presentation as a mere Twitch streamer who is too obscure to merit discussion. He sees himself as a representative voice of a movement that can take control of a major party, and then the country itself.”
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Blood Libels, Old and New
In Tablet, former refusenik Natan Sharansky considers the staying power of centuries-old blood libels against the backdrop of genocide accusations against Israel. “Our goal should not be to convince the rest of the world that we are right. Our existence does not depend on a vote in the United Nations. It depends on our own belief in the righteousness of Jewish civilization. Of course, we are not above criticism, and we must acknowledge and correct course when we deviate from our own standards. But remaining vigilant about our shortcomings is not the same as accepting guilt we don’t deserve.”
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Hatred on the March
In Fox News, Jeff Miller and Stuart Eizenstat, respectively the current and former chairs of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, raise concerns about the rise of antisemitism, aided by malign actors. “Furthermore, state actors like Iran, Qatar, China and Russia spread antisemitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial to stir hatred of Jews and sow chaos in democracies. They are succeeding. Antisemitism is no longer lurking at society’s fringes. It is marching openly through its institutions. Violent antisemitism is at levels not seen since the Holocaust.”
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Facing the Palestinian Question
In The New York Times, Shira Efron, a senior fellow at RAND, posits that Israel’s next government must address questions around the Palestinians in order to improve the country’s global social standing. “No amount of walking is going to make the Palestinian question go away. The current government tried to settle the matter for good, seeking to bury the idea of the Palestinian question once and for all. Instead, this government may have exhumed it, turning it into a domestic issue in nations around the world and leaving whichever government comes next no choice but to finally reckon with it.”
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The Meaning of Mourning
In The Wall Street Journal, Kenneth Brander, the president and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone, reflects on Jewish mourning practices. “We need the dead to take on an enduring role in the lives of the living. That takes time, and the shaping of time spent mourning is one of the purposes of ritual. In Jewish practice, when one says the name of a deceased person, one adds the phrase “may his memory be a blessing.” The goal of mourning is to make that phrase true: The memory of the dead actually improves our physical lives and our moral selves.”
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