| | Good Wednesday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we look at the concessions being made by university administrators to anti-Israel campus activists as graduation season arrives, and report on opposition from Democratic leaders to an upcoming House bill that would block the Biden administration from withholding aid to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : Sarah Elfreth, Sam Feist and Ilya Sutskever. A week after President Joe Biden decided to freeze a delivery of weapons to Israel, his administration told Congress that it plans to push ahead with the sale of new weapons to the tune of more than $1 billion to Israel, three congressional aides told reporters. “The potential arms transfer illustrated the narrow path the Biden administration is walking with Israel, trying to prevent an assault on Rafah and limit civilian casualties in Gaza but continuing to supply a longtime ally that the president has said has a right to defend itself,” The New York Times reported. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is slated to travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend to discuss, among other things, a looming Rafah invasion and potential Israeli-Saudi normalization; the trip had been postponed from early April, when an injury sidelined Sullivan. On the election front, the political establishment of both parties had a successful night, with incumbents and politically experienced candidates prevailing over outsiders in several primaries, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes. The biggest win of the night came from Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who overcame over $61 million in spending from Rep. David Trone (D-MD) to prevail by a double digit margin in the Maryland Senate Democratic primary. Alsobrooks won thanks to her political base of Black voters, winning big in her home county and Baltimore City and scoring narrower victories in other population centers such as Trone’s home base of Montgomery County. Alsobrooks will face former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan in the general election, in what promises to be a competitive contest despite Maryland’s deep-blue orientation. As Hogan makes an aggressive push for Jewish voters in the state, it will be interesting to see if Alsobrooks, who embraced President Joe Biden’s call for conditioning military aid if Israel invades Rafah, will sound more supportive of Israel in the general election. Read more below. AIPAC scored a big win in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, where state Sen. Sarah Elfreth defeated former Capitol Hill police officer Harry Dunn in the Democratic primary. Dunn, whose work defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, helped him raise millions from donors, had the money advantage in the race, but Elfreth’s experience representing parts of the district proved to be more consequential. Elfreth’s candidacy was also boosted by AIPAC’s super PAC, which spent over $4 million on her behalf, helping her to keep pace financially with Dunn. In the Democratic primary for Trone’s seat in the 6th District, April Delaney, the wife of former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD), comfortably prevailed over state Del. Joe Vogel. Both Democrats ran as stalwart supporters of Israel. Delaney will face former state Del. Neil Parrott, a Republican, in the general election. In West Virginia, GOP Gov. Jim Justice crushed his right-wing primary challenger, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), and is all but guaranteed to head to the Senate next year. State Treasurer Riley Moore, the nephew of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), prevailed in his primary and is expected to succeed Mooney in the House. Two Republican lawmakers facing far-right challenges — Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Carol Miller (R-WV) — won easily in a victory for GOP pragmatism. The Republican Jewish Coalition, which endorsed both lawmakers, proclaimed their victory is a warning sign for Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), who is facing a primary challenge next month against a more-moderate challenger backed by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “Let there be no doubt: if you don’t stand with the Jewish community, if you don’t stand with Israel, the RJC will work to defeat you,” RJC National Chairman Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement. Bacon will be facing Democrat Tony Vargas in one of the most competitive House battlegrounds in the country. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | campus beat Universities make concessions to anti-Israel campus activists as graduation season arrives  JACEK BOCZARSKI/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES On Monday night, an anti-Israel encampment remained in Harvard Yard, a few stragglers left after most students left town following final exams. By Tuesday, the encampment was removed; protesters reached an agreement with interim Harvard President Alan Garber. But now, just a week from the start of official university commencement festivities, Harvard has backtracked on its disciplinary action, ahead of the arrival next week of thousands of graduates’ family members, alumni and honorary degree recipients to the Ivy League university. The path Garber took is now a well-trodden one — remove the threat of disciplinary consequences and allow protesters to meet with university trustees or other senior leaders to pitch them on divesting their schools’ endowments from Israeli businesses, a concession that before last month would have been unthinkable at America’s top universities. In a matter of days it has become commonplace, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch writes.
Set the stage: Northwestern University set the tone two weeks ago when President Michael Schill reached an agreement with anti-Israel protesters in exchange for them ending their encampment. Jewish leaders on campus found the agreement so offensive that the seven Jewish members of the university’s antisemitism committee — including Northwestern’s Hillel director, several faculty members and a student — stepped down in protest. Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who resigned from the committee, summed up their concerns: “It appears as though breaking the rules gets you somewhere, and trying to do things respectfully and by the books does not.”
Getting results: Her observation has proven prescient as universities negotiate with anti-Israel protesters who break campus rules while they slow-walk reforms long sought by Jewish students — or even avoid meeting with Jewish community members altogether. Where universities fumbled over statements addressing the Oct. 7 attacks last fall in failed bids to satisfy everyone, many campus leaders at schools including Princeton, Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin have now conceded it is easier to give in to protesters than to stand firm against their rule-breaking.
Behind closed doors: At many more universities, top administrators — including university presidents — have met with demonstrators, giving them a chance to air their concerns even when they didn’t reach an agreement. University of Chicago administrators held several days of negotiations with encampment leaders before the talks fell apart and police cleared the protesters. The George Washington University President Ellen Granberg met over the weekend with student protesters who lectured her about “structural inequality” at GW and likened the university’s code of conduct to slavery and Jim Crow-era segregation, according to a video recording of the meeting.
Read the full story here.
Bonus: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), a Harvard alumnus, slammed the school’s administration for what he deemed its “moral and institutional failure” in reaching an agreement with protesters. Fetterman said he was “dismayed by Harvard’s pandering to the fringe and its willingness to tolerate the pervasive antisemitism.” Whiplash Israel weapons bill faces strong Democratic headwinds in the House  Kent Nishimura/Getty Images Democratic leaders in Washington said yesterday that they are pushing hard to minimize the number of Democrats who vote this week for a House Republican bill that seeks to force the administration to abandon its efforts to restrict U.S. aid to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The announcement by House Democratic leaders was made on the same day as congressional aides told reporters that the Biden administration had told key lawmakers he would send more than $1 billion in additional arms and ammunition to Israel.
Whip notice: “The legislation would constitute an unprecedented limitation on President Biden’s executive authority and administrative discretion to implement U.S. foreign policy,” a whip notice distributed by Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark’s (D-MA) office reads. “This is not a serious legislative effort. It is another partisan stunt by Extreme MAGA Republicans who are determined to hurt President Biden politically.”
WH response: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre likewise said on Monday that the White House “strongly, strongly oppose[s] the bill,” and the White House said Tuesday that it would veto the bill if it passes. “This bill would undermine the President’s ability to execute an effective foreign policy. This bill could raise serious concerns about infringement on the President’s authorities under Article II of the Constitution,” the White House statement said.
Potential supporters: House Democratic leadership did whip against previous GOP bills to provide unilateral aid to Israel; one bill picked up 46 Democratic votes in favor while another, with Internal Revenue Service cuts, received a dozen Democratic supporters. At least 26 House Democrats have publicly expressed concerns about the arms sales halts, amid growing backlash from moderate Democrats to the policy.
Opposition: Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a Jewish Democrat who voted for one of the stand-alone Israel aid measures, strongly decried the new bill, suggesting that Democratic support will be limited. “Despite [the administration’s] long record of support for Israel, House Republicans yet again intend to use Israel as a political cudgel, which weakens Israel and undermines Israel’s leverage in this conflict — continuing a despicable and shameful pattern of using Israel and Jews as political pawns,” Goldman said in a statement. Read the full story here.
Upper chamber: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and 17 GOP co-sponsors introduced companion legislation in the Senate on Tuesday. maryland match Hogan and Alsobrooks to face off in November for Cardin's Md. Senate seat  CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES/WESLEY LAPOINTE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES The race is set for Maryland’s high-profile contest to replace retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), with Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks beating Rep. David Trone (D-MD) in a tight primary on Tuesday and advancing to the general election fight against Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Primary play: Alsobrooks, who had the support of nearly all of the state’s Democratic establishment, beat Trone by over 10 points despite his more than $60 million in campaign spending. Trone had argued on the campaign trail that he was the stronger general election candidate, but Alsobrooks accused him of using his wealth to influence the contest and lacking appeal with base voters. In the GOP primary, Hogan beat Robin Ficker, a disbarred attorney who was running to Hogan’s right, by more than 30 points.
Hogan’s prospects: Hogan’s entry transformed the race into one of the most competitive contests of the cycle. Cardin’s seat has been held by Democrats since the late Sen. J. Glenn Beall Jr. retired in 1977, while Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) seat has remained in Democratic hands since Sen. Charles Mathias’ retirement in 1987. Hogan has a very narrow path to victory in November, which will rely in part on lower Black voter turnout for Alsobrooks, a high crossover of Jewish Democrats splitting their ticket to vote for Hogan and President Joe Biden and a decent showing in Montgomery County.
Gearing up: Asked to react to news of Alsobrooks officially becoming his opponent immediately after the race was called, Hogan told JI he had not heard the news but that, "We look forward to the campaign ... We look forward to engaging on the issues."
Read the full story here. lifting spirits MIT to host music festival celebrating 'Jewish joy' this week  RICK KERN/GETTY IMAGES In recent weeks, as headlines have painted an increasingly grim picture of life for Jewish students on many American college campuses, a group of Boston-area Jewish students banded together to try to inject some positivity into that gloomy narrative. The result is a just-announced music festival taking place on Thursday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge with a slew of artists who have been outspoken about their support for Israel and the Jewish community in recent months, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Main event: The four-hour event will feature performances by the Israeli singer Idan Raichel; rapper and reggae artist Matisyahu and his son, LAIVY; singer-songwriter John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting; rapper Kosha Dillz; and a DJ from the Nova music festival. There will also be food trucks on-site, including kosher options.
Joyful Judaism: “Through the power of music and rhythm, the event aims to unite attendees, honor those who have passed, and support those facing challenges while celebrating joyful Judaism,” reads the event description. Tickets are free for college students, and cost $36 for anyone else who wants to attend. The event came together in less than two weeks, after MIT graduate student Talia Khan, the president of the MIT Israel Alliance, created a GoFundMe with the support of MIT Chabad to raise money to organize the event and cover the cost of student tickets. As of Tuesday night, the campaign has raised $32,000.
Read the full story here. common cause A survivor of human trafficking is speaking out for survivors of the Hamas massacre  courtesy On the surface, Brook Parker-Bello has little in common with the hostages kidnapped from Israel and held in Gaza since Oct. 7. She is an actor, author and activist from Los Angeles who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Obama White House for her work fighting sex trafficking. But Parker-Bello felt a deep connection with those who experienced the Oct. 7 terror attacks firsthand. As a teenager, she was kidnapped and trafficked for years between Nevada, California and New York until a police sting ended her abuse. “I know what it's like to be in mental anguish and psychologically distraught, dealing with PTSD, depression, anxiety and challenges that are really hard to understand, and that sometimes rear their heads later,” Parker-Bello told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash in an interview following her recent visit to Israel.
The value of face time: Now, she is working on a documentary set to be released later this year that captures the essence of her trip set in the context of her own life experiences. Parker-Bello, founder and CEO of More Too Life, an organization that advocates and supports victims of human trafficking and sexual violence, told JI that only by visiting Israel in person, can “you begin to understand what is really taking place there and you see stuff that you might not hear or see in the media.” The author and entrepreneur, who is also creating an online mental health support platform for victims of human trafficking and sexual violence, added, “When you’re meeting individuals face-to-face, you can also encourage them.”
Confused reaction: Parker-Bello told JI that she had spent a lot of time in the Jewish state previously and that she was not only “in tears” following the brutal Oct. 7 terror attack, but was also confused and frustrated by the reaction of organizations and activists who usually stand up for women’s rights. “I was uncertain why people were reacting like that; it was sort of a conflict within a conflict and even early on people were beginning to take sides and not try to support or understand the victims,” she said.
Read the full interview here. | Biden and the Youth Vote: The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch suggests that concerns that President Joe Biden is losing support from young voters over his administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war are misguided. “If Biden is losing support from young people, and young people overwhelmingly object to his handling of the war in Gaza, a natural conclusion would be that the war is the reason for the lack of support. But that’s a mistake, because there’s a big difference between opinions and priorities. People have all kinds of views, sometimes strong ones, on various topics, but only a few issues will determine how they vote. And very few Americans — even young ones — rank the Israel-Hamas war as one of their top political priorities. … There’s no denying that the Israel-Palestine conflict, along with the related controversies emanating from it, has affected and will continue to affect domestic U.S. politics — and the moral questions posed by the war extend far beyond electoral calculations. But the issue is unlikely to trigger any demographic realignment. When it comes to the issues they care about most, young Americans appear closer to the overall electorate than to the activist groups that claim to represent them.” [TheAtlantic]
What ‘Free Palestine’ Means: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens considers the realities of a future “free Palestine,” governed by the same autocratic style of rule that Palestinians currently endure. “In other words, what the campus protesters happily envisage as a utopian, post-Zionist ‘state for all of its citizens’ would under Hamas be one in which Jews were killed, exiled, prosecuted, integrated into an Islamist state or pressed into the servitude of a Levantine version of Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle. Those same protesters might rejoin that they don’t want a future to be led by Hamas — but that only raises the question of why they do absolutely nothing to oppose it. This is not the first generation of Western activists who championed movements that promised liberation in theory and misery and murder in practice: The Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975 to the cheers of even mainstream liberal voices. Mao Zedong, possibly the greatest mass murderer of the past 100 years, never quite lost his cachet on the political left. And magazines like The Nation eulogized Hugo Chávez as a paragon of democracy.” [NYTimes] | War Worries: Politico reports on growing sentiment within the Biden administration that Israel will be unable to fully win its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Bibi Bluster: Shortly after President Joe Biden’s comments last week that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be crossing a “red line,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at a security cabinet meeting that Israel was “not a vassal state” of the U.S.
The Ties That Bind: The chairs of the House's Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Committee on Education and the Workforce are launching a wide-ranging probe into potential ties between terrorist groups and the organizations backing the campus anti-Israel protests.
Law and Order: Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) and nine Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution condemning campus protests and praising law enforcement and fraternity members who intervened.
AIPAC Angst: In a virtual organizing call, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) alleged that until his election in 2020, AIPAC had “full control of this district, just like they now have full control of Congress — as they fund everyone in Congress.”
Switching Sides: Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, who had previously donated to then-Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's campaign in 2020, made a $1 million donation to former President Donald Trump's campaign this cycle.
Line of Questioning: In a Jewish Link op-ed, Northwestern University alumnus Scott Shay suggests several lines of questioning that could be posed to Northwestern President Andrew Schill when he testifies before the House Education and Workforce Committee next week.
Baring His Teeth: Florida legislators are calling for the state’s board of dentistry to revoke the license of an imam who gave a sermon calling to “annihilate the tyrannical Jews”; the North Miami dentist claimed he was making a political statement, not calling for violence.
Sinwar’s Strategy: Documents discovered in the Gaza home of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar’s chief of staff indicate that Hamas was planning to set up a base in Turkey from which it would coordinate attacks against Israeli targets in nearby countries.
Campus Vandalism: A University of Delaware student was charged with committing a hate crime, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct after vandalizing a Holocaust memorial on campus and going on an antisemitic tirade.
Guilty Plea: A California man who shot two Jewish men outside of synagogues in Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson neighborhood will plead guilty in exchange for a 40-year sentence.
Open and Shut: OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is departing the company; in a post on X, CEO Sam Altman described Sutskever as “easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend.”
Across the Pond: Officials in the U.K. charged three men with plotting a terror attack against the Jewish community in Manchester.
Show of Support: Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with and heaped praise on a Hamas delegation led by Ismail Haniyeh during his trip to Qatar this week for the Doha Economic Forum.
Plot Twist: Reuters reports on a plan foiled in March to smuggle weapons from Iranian-backed cells in Syria to a Hamas-linked Muslim brotherhood cell in Jordan.
Tough Talk: U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood called on Iran to cease its transfers of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen, telling the U.N. Security Council it should “call Iran out for its destabilizing role and insist that it cannot hide behind the Houthis.”
Nuke Talk: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had expressed willingness to engage in “serious dialogue” with the U.N. agency over its nuclear program for the first time in more than a year.
Long Day’s Journey: Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose most acclaimed film focused on executioners in the Islamic republic, fled the country on foot after being sentenced to eight years in prison.
Media Move: CNN Senior Vice President Sam Feist, who also serves at the network’s Washington bureau chief, is joining C-SPAN as CEO after 35 years at CNN.
Conservative News: GOP political consultants are launching a Capitol Hill-focused conservative news outlet; journalist and former congressional candidate Matthew Foldi will lead the site’s editorial.
Remembering: Photojournalist Daniel Kramer, who spent a year photographing the rise of Bob Dylan, died at 91. |  Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images A man watches the civilian flyover from Tel Aviv to mark Israel’s 76th Independence Day on Tuesday. The traditional military flyover was scrapped this year due to the ongoing war against Hamas. |  Hannes P Albert/picture alliance via Getty Images First lady of Israel, Michal Herzog turns 63...
Principal of Queens-based Muss Development, a real estate development company founded by his grandfather Isaac in 1906, Joshua Lawrence Muss turns 83... Chairman emeritus of The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States, Rachel Oestreicher Bernheim turns 81... VP of the American Zionist Movement and chairman of the Religious Zionists of America, Martin Oliner turns 77... Retired major general in the IDF, he served as Israel's national security advisor and is now a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, Yaakov Amidror turns 76... Israeli diplomat who served as Israel's ambassador to the Holy See, Mordechay Lewy turns 76... CEO of Emigrant Bank, Howard Philip Milstein turns 73... Professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, she is the daughter of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Susannah Heschel turns 68... Owner of Midnight Music Management and one of the founders of The Happy Minyan in Los Angeles, Stuart Wax... Associate editor and columnist at the Washington Post, Ruth Allyn Marcus turns 66... Five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, producer, and filmmaker, Giselle Fernandez turns 63... Owner/President of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings, he is the immediate past chairman of the Board of Governors of The Jewish Agency for Israel, Mark Wilf turns 62... Former member of the Nevada Assembly, she served as secretary of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, Ellen Barre Spiegel turns 62... Director, screenwriter and former film critic, Rod Lurie turns 62... Actor and filmmaker, Grant Heslov turns 61... Vice Chancellor of Brown University, she is the founder of Reeves Advisory, Pamela R. Reeves... Actor and comedian, David Krumholtz turns 46... Executive director in the Office of Crime Victim Services at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Shira Rosenthal Phelps... Noam Finger turns 46... Executive director at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Daniel M. Rothschild... Actress, Jamie-Lynn Sigler turns 43... Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, Eli Eric Saslow turns 42... Senior editor at Vogue, Chloe F. Schama... Rochelle Wilner... Ofir Richman... | | | | | |
