| | Good Wednesday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we look at how Qatar’s approach to talks over the release of the hostages is complicating diplomatic efforts to secure the remaining hostages’ freedom, and report from yesterday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on UNRWA. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : Larry Summers, Bill Maher, Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield and reported new owner of the Baltimore Orioles David Rubenstein. It’s all too easy to conclude that, in our age of political extremes, no amount of outlandish rhetoric or political scandal can sink a politician’s career. But even as the public’s acceptance of bad behavior has grown, there are still some lines that are hard to cross and survive — criminal investigations, antisemitic associations and 9/11 denial among them. This week, two of the most prominent members of the hard-left Squad are testing that proposition, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) is now under criminal investigation over her alleged misspending of federal security money. The far-left lawmaker who has led the charge to “defund the police” is now under scrutiny over allegations that she profited over her own extensive personal security arrangements. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), already facing political heat for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building, is now revealed to have published poems and writings featuring disturbing conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks on his personal blog before being elected to Congress. (Bowman, in responding to the reporting, said he regretted his years-old posts.) Bowman also recently lauded anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein, who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, before apologizing and claiming he was unaware of Finkelstein’s background. Both Bush and Bowman are facing formidable primary challengers, an early sign of their vulnerability given the power of incumbency. Bush is running against Wesley Bell, a progressive Black prosecutor in St. Louis County with close ties to racial justice reformers. Bell is well-positioned to run as a progressive without the ethical and ideological baggage that Bush represents. He already raised nearly $500,000 at the end of 2023 for his campaign, a sign he’ll have significant resources and local support. Bowman is facing popular Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who already announced raising a whopping $1.4 million for his campaign against Bowman. The big wild card in the primary is the likelihood that redistricting tweaks the current congressional lines of the New York map. Bowman’s current district is in the Bronx and Westchester; his scandals threaten to cost him particularly in the suburban part of the district. In recent elections, many of the anti-Israel candidates sharing the hard-left views of the Squad faced political problems on other issues that underscored their extremism. Many candidates’ anti-Israel activism proved to be a signal of other radical or outlandish views and behavior that proved toxic in a primary. That’s shaping up to be the case with Bush and Bowman. Denying key parts of the 9/11 terror attacks is politically poisonous in New York City and its suburbs, an area filled with survivors and families of victims. Facing criminal charges is usually a political death knell (unless you’re former President Donald Trump). Antisemitism is still politically toxic, especially in districts with significant Jewish constituencies. There’s still a long way to go until the primaries take place: New York’s primaries are scheduled for June, while Missouri is holding them in August. But if political history is any guide, it’s likely the Squad’s representation will be on the decline this year — a result of their own self-inflicted scandals and ideological extremism. Read more here on the challenges facing Bush and Bowman. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | UNRWA'S UNDOING Across a broad spectrum, lawmakers open to replacing UNRWA  RAFAH POLICE A broad spectrum of lawmakers indicated at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday that they’re open to pursuing plans to dissolve and replace the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the wake of revelations that the organization’s employees were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel, likely foreshadowing further efforts in the House to wind down the scandal-plagued U.N. agency, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Resumption: But some Democrats argued that humanitarian funding for Gaza needs to be continued through UNRWA or some other mechanism in the near term, before a full-scale overhaul. The comments could preview expanded pressure that the Biden administration might face to move quickly to reinstate aid to the troubled U.N. agency.
What they’re saying: Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), the ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability subcommittee, which co-hosted the hearing, said he has “real concerns” about UNRWA, acknowledging that there is a “need for substantial reform, or to find a successor organization to fulfill the functions” that UNRWA performs. But Crow insisted that the U.S. must find a channel to swiftly resume the flow of humanitarian goods to Gaza — whether through UNRWA itself or an alternative organization. He also said that the actions of the dozen UNRWA employees implicated in the Oct. 7 attack shouldn’t reflect on the entire organization. A Wall Street Journal report published Monday cited Israeli intelligence suggesting that 10% of UNRWA employees in Gaza were members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Wide-reaching: Republicans favored a more aggressive approach to the U.N. agency, pushing legislation to cut off UNRWA permanently, and highlighting widespread, long-standing issues inside the agency, which they argued shows that the rot inside UNRWA goes far deeper than the dozen employees who directly participated in the Oct. 7 attack. “Going far beyond the revelations of the last week, there has long been massive and irrefutable evidence of UNRWA’s extensive connivance, complicity and cooperation in Hamas’ antisemitic genocidal hate campaign,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the chair of the International Organizations subcommittee, argued.
Read the full story here.
Foggy Bottom report: The State Department yesterday offered the clearest answer yet as to how U.S. assistance to UNRWA will be affected by the pause in funding announced last week. While $300,000 that the U.S. had been set to donate has been suspended, the U.S. has already given UNRWA $121 million since the start of the fiscal year in October. The $300,000 was all that remained of U.S. funds allocated to the agency in the short-term budget bill passed by Congress in the fall. Any further funds would have to be approved in the supplemental appropriations bill President Joe Biden has been urging Congress to pass since October, or in a full appropriations package.
Pink slip: Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Claudia Tenney (R-NY) joined Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) as original co-signers of a letter calling for the U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, and the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, to resign. The letter is now circulating on the Hill for additional signatories. doha dilemma Qatar's two-faced approach to hostage diplomacy divides Israeli officials, American Jewish leaders  MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES The conundrum over Qatar that the Israeli government, Israelis, the U.S. and American Jews find themselves in — exert maximum pressure on the Hamas benefactors to win the release of the hostages, treat them with kid gloves or a little of each — is so knotty that perhaps only metaphors can grasp the complexity of it. A senior official at a major American Jewish organization reached for a metaphor from biology: Qatar and Hamas are locked in a “symbiotic relationship,” one feeding off the other, so to speak. “It would be foolish to minimize the benefits of this symbiotic relationship in this moment of crisis with the lives of the hostages hanging in the balance,” the official told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov.
Thanks and pressure: The executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, Ron Halber, leaned on the psychological concept of “cognitive dissonance” when he addressed a “gathering” last week outside the Qatari Embassy in Washington, D.C. He said the event was meant "to thank the Qataris and at the same time to press them to push Hamas. Those two things are not in conflict: You've done a good job, you really need to do more of a good job." Even calling the event a gathering — rather than a protest or demonstration — was a sign of the issue’s sensitivity: Qatar the bad guy, Qatar the potential good guy.
Change in tone: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent leaked criticism of Qatar — albeit without the rhetorical flourish — has brought this delicate dynamic regarding Qatar to the fore. In a leaked audio recording of Netanyahu in a meeting with hostages’ relatives, he expressed criticism of the Gulf state shared by many Israelis and supporters. Yet many of the leading voices calling to release the 136 hostages held in Gaza – including Netanyahu himself until last week – have been hesitant to speak out against Qatar. Netanyahu called Qatar “more problematic” as a mediator than the U.N. or Red Cross, and said he was “very angry” at the U.S. for squandering what he viewed as opportunities to up the pressure on Doha.
Doha daylight: As Netanyahu's "very angry" comment would indicate, he is at odds with the White House on the topic of Qatar. Secretary of State Tony Blinken "expressed gratitude for Qatar's indispensable mediation efforts, especially since October 7," in a readout following a meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, one in a long series of Biden administration statements thanking Doha.
Read the full story here.
Bonus: Al Thani said on Monday that he hoped U.S. retaliation for the drone attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members would not “undermine the efforts that we are doing or jeopardize the process," of negotiations for a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. aid arguments House Democrats signal openness to workarounds on supplemental  FRANCIS CHUNG/POLITICO VIA AP IMAGES As House Republican leadership continues to publicly dig in against the Senate’s still-unreleased bipartisan border deal, some House Democrats are signaling they may be open to workarounds, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Discharge petition: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) introduced a bill on Tuesday including aid to Israel and Ukraine along the lines of President Joe Biden’s original supplemental funding request. “Congressman Moskowitz is a former emergency management director, he understands having contingency plans,” a Moskowitz spokesperson told JI. Moskowitz’s bill could be the first step toward pursuing a discharge petition, a legislative mechanism that would sidestep GOP leadership’s opposition, assuming the move is able to rally enough signatures to achieve a majority of the House.
Break-up: According to Semafor, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told a group of European legislators on Tuesday that the supplemental bill could again be split up when it returns to the House. That’s a difficult proposition — the House passed a stand-alone Israel bill, paired with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service — but Senate Democrats have rejected the stand-alone approach. Some House conservatives would likely demand that the IRS cuts or other funding offsets be reincorporated into the bill, another proposal that Senate Republicans have rejected.
Senate check-in: Some Senate Republicans sounded increasingly pessimistic about the bill’s future yesterday evening. They reportedly debated on Tuesday evening. whether to abandon the border deal and refocus on Israel and Ukraine aid.
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere on the Hill: Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) and Colin Allred (D-TX) are set to send a letter today pushing back on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. “The allegations brought by South Africa are reprehensible, deliberately one-sided, and represent the clear misuse of international mechanisms meant to prevent and punish perpetrators who truly have the intent to eliminate a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group,” the letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, reads. crackdown call Bipartisan group of House members calls for stronger enforcement of Iran oil sanctions  ATTA KENARE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A bipartisan group of 62 House members wrote to President Joe Biden on Tuesday calling for the administration to crack down on enforcing oil sanctions on Iran in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel and the increase in Iranian proxy activity throughout the Middle East in the ensuing four months, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Content: “In the wake of the October 7th terror attacks and subsequent attacks by Iran-backed proxies on U.S. forces in the Middle East, the administration must adopt a zero-tolerance policy regarding Iran’s lucrative oil exports,” the letter reads. “These exports provide a crucial lifeline to sustain and expand Tehran’s sponsorship of terrorist groups that seek the destruction of Israel. They must be stopped.”
Leading the letter: The letter was led by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Mike Lawler (R-NY), the lead sponsors of the SHIP Act, a House-passed bill that would seek stronger sanctions on Iranian oil exports, particularly targeting Chinese purchasers of oil.
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere on the Hill: More than a dozen lawmakers, including Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Marc Veasey (D-TX), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), spoke on the House floor for around an hour last night calling for the release of the hostages still being held in Gaza and highlighting the stories of several of those still in captivity. heat on harvard Former Harvard President Larry Summers gives vote of no-confidence towards school  Robin Marchant/Getty Images Former Harvard President Larry Summers stepped up his criticism of the Ivy League university’s leadership in a series of tweets on Tuesday expressing concern for how the school is addressing antisemitism, which has dramatically increased on campus since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider.
Telling tweet: “My confidence in Harvard leadership’s ability and will to confront anti-semitism and the demonization of Israel continues to decline,” Summers, a former U.S. Treasury secretary, wrote on X Tuesday morning. “Unfortunately, it is becoming ever clearer why Harvard ranks first on anti- semitism, even as it ranks last on upholding free speech.”
Urging accountability: “I cannot think of a worse stretch in Harvard history than the last few months. I have no doubt that all members of the Corporation are deeply devoted to Harvard,” the president emeritus wrote, referring to the Harvard Corporation, the university’s main governing body. “As the institution’s ultimate fiduciaries, I hope they will take appropriate accountability and enable a restoration of confidence.”
Read the full story here. | Bibi’s Bind: The Wall Street Journal’s Rory Jones and Dov Lieber look at the political calculations that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making — or not making — amid plummeting support in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. “For Netanyahu, the pressure for a decision over Gaza’s future is the biggest test so far of his attempt to keep his political career afloat. The 74-year-old Israeli premier became the country’s longest-serving leader by focusing on security, but he oversaw Israel’s worst-ever security failure on Oct. 7, when major lapses allowed Hamas to attack southern Israel and kill 1,200 people. Public opinion has turned sharply against him. Netanyahu’s rule depends on avoiding snap elections and keeping his narrow parliamentary majority intact. He has vowed to stay on until he has led Israel to ‘total victory’ over Hamas. Netanyahu’s hope, say analysts: a visible victory, such as the killing of Hamas’s top leaders in Gaza, would help him to bounce back. ‘The longer you can delay and be ambiguous — from his point of view, that’s the best situation,’ said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a political scientist at Israel’s Reichman University. ‘Not to decide is also to decide.’” [WSJ]
Ousting UNRWA: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens argues in favor of abolishing UNRWA, following Israeli intelligence reports suggesting deep ties between the U.N. aid agency and Hamas. “The changing borders and independence movements of the postwar era produced millions of refugees: Germans, Indians, Pakistanis, Palestinians and Jews, including some 800,000 Jews who were kicked out of Arab countries that had been their homes for centuries. Nearly all found new lives in new countries — except for Palestinians. They have been kept as perpetual refugees as a means of both delegitimizing Israel and preserving the irredentist fantasy that someday their descendants will exercise what they believe is their ‘right of return,’ effectively through the elimination of the Jewish state. It’s upon that alleged right that efforts at a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal have foundered. It’s also the right that UNRWA’s very existence keeps alive. Palestinians should be citizens of the countries in which they live — just as some two million Arabs are in Israel. They should not be cudgels in a never-ending struggle, subsidized from one aggrieved generation to the next by international largess.” [NYTimes]
Strategy Session: The Liberal Patriot’s Brian Katulis and Peter Juul call for a “strategic response” to Iranian threats. “The so-called ‘Axis of Resistance,’ the network that Iran has constructed over decades, appears to be taking action to put as much pressure on the United States as it can without directly confronting America’s vastly superior military — whether it’s the Houthis targeting international shipping in the Red Sea or Iraqi and Syrian militias attacking American troops deployed in those countries to fight terrorists. That means that neither tit-for-tat strikes, one-off assassinations of key leaders, nor even wider-ranging strikes like those conducted against the Houthis since the start of the year, will restore deterrence vis-à-vis Tehran. There are no true ‘goldilocks’ options available here. Attempts to fine-tune the American response to be somehow just right will probably prove too much for those opposed to any action against Iran and not enough to deter the regime in Tehran from further attacks. America has bent over backwards to avoid escalation with Iran and its partners, only to see that axis escalate repeatedly with little real cost beyond some replaceable weapons and, occasionally, a militia commander.” [LiberalPatriot]
Tehran Trouble: The Atlantic’s Arash Azizi spotlights the destabilization facing Iran as its proxies around the region scale up their attacks on Western interests. “Whatever their feelings about Israel, serious Iranian analysts know that it doesn’t make strategic sense for Iran to get into a military confrontation with the Jewish state and its American and Western allies. I have spoken with Iranian military and security figures in recent days, and some among them have asked: If Arabs themselves refuse such a confrontation, why should Iran accept this dangerous burden? Those I spoke with suggested the existence of sharp internal disagreements about the future direction of Iran. Sitting at the helm, Khamenei is the only glue that holds the regime and its current orientation together. As he is almost 85, and not a particularly healthy man, many now await his death with a mix of eagerness and anxiety. Jockeying for succession has already begun. But, for now, the same man calls the shots, as he has done since 1989: an octogenarian revolutionary Islamist whose reckless building up of a network of militias has turned into a grave threat to his nation.” [TheAtlantic] | Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | D.C. Diplomacy: Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is in Washington today, where he is slated to meet with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and other senior Biden administration officials.
Planned Response: President Joe Biden told reporters that he knows how the U.S. will respond to the weekend drone attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan, but stopped short of explaining what the response will be.
Holding Fire: The Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group, believed to be behind the weekend attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, said it is halting its military operations against U.S. troops in the Mideast.
Proxy War: The Wall Street Journal looks at how Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. targets and allies in the Mideast risk dragging Tehran into a broader war with the West.
Policy Problems: Politico reports on concerns from current and former U.S. officials that Washington’s shift away from Iran and the Middle East to focus on threats from Russia and China made the U.S. more vulnerable.
Turkey Talks: Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said the U.S. would consider restarting talks with Turkey over the production of F-35 fighter jets if it could resolve Washington’s concerns over Ankara’s acquisition of Russian S-400s.
Club Concern: The Capitol Hill Club, a GOP club in Washington whose members include most congressional Republicans, hosted anti-Israel activists who denied the extent of Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7., called for the elimination of the Jewish state and suggested Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) brain had been “hacked” by the “Israel lobby.”
She’s Running: Former South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Catherine Templeton is mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
Security Supplement: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis greenlit a $25 million increase to boost security at Jewish day schools across the state.
Bird Buy: David Rubenstein and Mike Aroughet are moving forward on a $1.725 billion deal to purchase the Baltimore Orioles from John Angelos.
Unicorn Status: Minute Media raised tens of millions of dollars in its latest round of funding, and is now valued at more than $1 billion.
Miami Moment: Affinity Partners founder Jared Kushner spoke about his approach to investing and weighed in on recent events in the Middle East at the Global Alts 2024 conference in Miami yesterday.
Roger That: BMG is cutting ties with Roger Waters over the former Pink Floyd frontman’s comments about Israel.
Un-Reasonable: In an interview with Reason, Bill Maher recalls trying to temper Kanye West’s antisemitic comments, to no avail.
Behind the Scenes: The Washington Post spotlights the efforts of the production design team behind “The Zone of Interest,” the majority of which takes place in a home just outside the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Donor Decisions: Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, a 1989 alum of Harvard, is pausing future donations to his alma mater over its handling of antisemitism, less than a year after he donated $300 million to the university. Meanwhile, the billionaire has made two contributions over the past two months, amounting to $5 million, to a super PAC backing Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign.
Crimson Copy: Harvard’s chief diversity officer is facing allegations that her academic work includes dozens of instances of plagiarism.
Across the Pond: U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said London was considering pushing Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, which he noted could bring about “irreversible progress to a two-state solution.”
Survey Says: The U.K.’s Labour party is conducting polling and focus groups of Muslim voters in an attempt to assess how the party’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas has affected its broader standing.
Eyeing Exile: Israeli officials have had internal discussions about the possibility of exiling the masterminds of the Oct. 7 terror attacks outside of Gaza.
Plea Deal: A former chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and state witness in the corruption trial against his former boss, Ari Harrow, was convicted of fraud and breach of trust. |  Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images Addressing reporters in New York on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. was “troubled” by recent reports of the involvement of UNRWA employees in the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, adding that the Biden administration needs “to see fundamental changes before we can resume providing funding directly to UNRWA.”
“We need to look at the organization, how it operates in Gaza, how they manage their staff, and to ensure that people who commit criminal acts, such as these 12 individuals, are held accountable immediately so that UNRWA can continue the essential work that it is doing,” Thomas-Greenfield elaborated. |  Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images Actress best known for her role in the Showcase series "Lost Girl," Anna Silk turns 50...
Israeli nuclear physicist and professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Igal Talmi turns 99... Scion of a leading rabbinic family in pre-WWII Poland, former assistant U.S. solicitor general, now a private attorney with an active Supreme Court practice focused on religious liberty issues, Nathan Lewin turns 88... Classical music composer as well as acclaimed movie score composer, Philip Glass turns 87... Associate professor emeritus of Talmud and rabbinics at The Jewish Theological Seminary, Mayer Elya Rabinowitz turns 85... Chair of Bain & Company, Orit Gadiesh turns 73... Chief rabbi of Norway while also serving as a member of Knesset from 1999 to 2009, Michael Melchior turns 70... Founder and CEO of MikeWorldWide, Michael W. Kempner turns 66... Former member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for 20 years, Matt Kisber turns 64... Founder and CEO of Oneg, Jeanie Milbauer... CEO at Gracie Capital, Daniel L. Nir... Dermatologist who served as the U.S. ambassador to Iceland from 2019 to 2021, he is a candidate for U.S. Senate from Nevada in the 2024 election, Jeffrey Ross Gunter turns 63... Co-founder, chairman and CEO of Meridian Capital Group, Ralph Herzka turns 62... Organization of American States commissioner to monitor and combat antisemitism, Fernando Lottenberg turns 62... Neurosurgeon and chairman of the Rockland County (N.Y.) Board of Health, Jeffrey Sable Oppenheim turns 62... Fourth-generation real estate developer who builds upscale condominiums, he is a founding partner of Redbrick LMD, Louis Myerberg Dubin turns 61... Classical cellist, her debut in Carnegie Hall was at 17 years old, Ofra Harnoy turns 59... Host of NPR's news quiz "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!," his older brother is a rabbi, Peter Sagal turns 59... Canadian-born businessman, Dov Charney turns 55... Mayor of Efrat and former chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, Oded Revivi turns 55... CEO of City Cast, he was previously CEO of Atlas Obscura and Slate, David Plotz turns 54... CEO at Affiliated Monitoring, Daniel J. Oppenheim... Senior adviser of BerlinRosen's New York office, Michael Rabinowitz-Gold... VP of insights, sports and Olympics at NBC Universal Media, Matthew Gottlieb... Film producer and founder of Annapurna Pictures, Megan Ellison turns 38... Singer, who won Israel's “Kokhav Nolad” (“A Star is Born”) song contest in 2008, Israel Bar-On turns 35... Managing director at 25madison, Grant Silow... Israeli singer, songwriter and television actor, Eliad Nachum turns 34... Director of programs and strategy at the Kraft Group and affiliates, Clara Scheinmann... Associate at Covington & Burling, Eli Nachmany... | | | | | |
