| | Good Monday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we break down the results of the elections in the U.K. and France. We report on yesterday’s spat between Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Haredi enlistment legislation, look at the security measures being taken to protect Israeli athletes ahead of the Olympics later this month and talk to Jewish leaders in St. Louis who are raising concerns about Rep. Cori Bush in the lead-up to next month’s primary. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : Adam Mosseri, Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Anthony Housefather. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - With Congress back in session, we’re monitoring how many more Democratic lawmakers will be calling for President Joe Biden to step aside as the party’s presidential nominee. The number is growing after Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Mark Takano (D-CA), Adam Smith (D-WA) and Joe Morelle (D-NY) said the president should leave the race in a private phone call on Sunday with House Democratic leadership. At least five additional Democrats have already publicly called for Biden to withdraw.
- Vice President Kamala Harris is joining the president’s daily brief this morning.
- And on the campaign side, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the president’s 2024 reelection chair, is holding a call with bundlers today. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is also slated to speak on the call.
- Elsewhere in Washington, foreign leaders, including Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, are arriving for the NATO summit, which begins on Tuesday. It’s the first time that the nation’s capital has hosted the event in 25 years.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is slated to speak at the Hudson Institute this afternoon for a conversation about American deterrence amid a rise in global threats.
- We’re keeping an eye on Sun Valley, Idaho, this week, where big names from Shari Redstone to Bob Iger to Sam Altman are expected to converge for the annual days-long confab hosted by Allen & Co. Also on the invite list: Govs. Wes Moore and Josh Shapiro, Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, Josh Kushner, Alex Karp, Brian Grazer, Meredith Kopit Levien, David Zaslav, Max Levchin, Barry Diller, Adam Silver, Andy Jassy, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Benioff and Ben Sasse.
| In the U.K. and France, the left has grown its power in the recent elections, raising questions in France about Paris’ commitment to tackling antisemitism and maintaining support of Israel. In the U.K., many Jewish voters put their faith back into Labour after having turned away from the party during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as its leader.
In a surprising result for France’s parliamentary elections, the far-left New Popular Front coalition won an estimated 178 seats in Sunday’s second round of voting, becoming the largest bloc in a deeply divided legislature. French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition won about 150 seats, while the right-wing National Rally fell short of expectations, winning about 145 seats.
The stronger-than-expected showing for the left-wing parties came as centrists built alliances with the left as part of a “Republican front” to block right-wing National Rally lawmakers from winning in the second round of balloting.
Leaders of France’s Jewish community lamented the strong showing by the left, led by leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is virulently anti-Israel and widely regarded as antisemitic. “Around him right now are some incarnations of the new antisemitism. A chilling moment. A stain: Continue to fight against these people,” French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote of Melenchon on X.
Israeli-French lawmaker Meyer Habib lost his seat representing French expats in the Mediterranean region, including tens of thousands in Israel, who gave him 85% of their votes, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Habib, a longtime friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who endorsed him, was a prominent figure in French-Israel relations in recent decades, even before his 11 years in the lower house of the French parliament. In his time in office, Habib was outspoken in favor of Israel and was targeted with antisemitic videos and comments, including by a lawmaker from Melenchon's party who called him a “pig in the mud of genocide.” After his election loss, Habib visited the Western Wall and warned that "the extreme and antisemitic left has conquered France … I am very concerned about the future of the Jews in France and about France in general." Habib was defeated 52%-48% by Caroline Yadan, a representative of Macron’s party who made fighting antisemitism one of her main campaign messages.
In England, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won in a landslide against a divided conservative opposition, winning control of the government for the first time in 14 years. Starmer, a pragmatist, played a leading role as opposition leader in purging Corbyn and his antisemitic allies from the party.
But the Labour Party is still filled with pockets of anti-Israel sentiment, and was pressured in predominantly Muslim constituencies by independent candidates running on radical anti-Israel platforms. Corbyn himself won his seat as an independent against a Labour candidate backed by Starmer.
The bigger question is whether Starmer’s government will maintain the generally pro-Israel posture of recent Conservative prime ministers. During a phone call on Sunday with Netanyahu, Starmer said that his government remains committed to continuing London and Jerusalem’s “vital cooperation to deter malign threats,” according to a British readout. The prime minister added he looks forward to “further deepening the close relationship between the two countries.”
But Starmer’s new foreign secretary, David Lammy, drew concern in Israel after expressing backing for the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, recently announced that he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Lammy has tapped Ben Judah, who previously served as Lammy’s political adviser, as a senior adviser.
After Starmer’s victory, Lammy said: "I want to get back to a balanced position on Israel and Gaza” during a visit to Germany last Friday, calling for a cease-fire and return of all hostages. | Hard Climb Israel's Olympic team prepares for sport and security  DAVID BALOGH/GETTY IMAGES With the 2024 Summer Olympics set to kick off in Paris in less than three weeks, members of the Israeli team are not only busy training for the biggest sporting competition of their lives but are also preparing for the possibility of protests, animosity from other athletes and even potential terror attacks against the backdrop of the Gaza war, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash and Lahav Harkov report.
Protecting the athletes: “There is going to be a lot of security, both French and Israeli,” judoka champion Peter Paltchik, who will be one of two flag-bearers leading the Israeli delegation at the game’s opening ceremony on July 26, told JI in an interview. Speaking via phone from his training camp in Europe, Paltchik said that he could not go into much detail about the specifics of the security arrangements for the nearly 90 Israeli athletes, as well as coaches and support staff, but said he felt confident the games would be “safe and secure” for all members of the delegation.
Read the full story here. behind the scenes Gallant accuses 'reckless' Netanyahu of bringing politics into hostage deal  ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused one another of endangering efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages in a heated cabinet meeting on Sunday, after advances in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov has learned.
Trading barbs: Netanyahu said that Gallant’s opposition to the coalition’s Haredi conscription bill jeopardizes a hostage deal by destabilizing the government, while Gallant called the prime minister “reckless and irresponsible” for tying the two matters together. The cabinet was set to vote on extending mandatory IDF service to 36 months and increasing the retirement age from reserve duty by one year. The request, Gallant said, reflected a wartime need for more manpower.
Read the full story here.
On the hostage negotiation front: Israel sent Mossad chief David Barnea and a team to Doha, Qatar, to negotiate a deal after Hamas reportedly dropped its demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war from the beginning of a cease-fire. In a sign of his growing distrust in the defense establishment, Netanyahu sent his diplomatic adviser, Ophir Falk, to observe the talks, while IDF and Shin Bet representatives remained in Israel. CIA Director Bill Burns also traveled to Qatar for the weekend talks. not beating around the bush Rep. Cori Bush draws ire of St. Louis Jewish community  JEMAL COUNTESS/GETTY IMAGES FOR COURT ACCOUNTABILITY During her time in office, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who is fighting for her seat in her Aug. 6 primary, has consistently ignored and rejected efforts from members of the mainstream Jewish community to communicate and connect with her and her office, six Jewish leaders supporting her opponent told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.
Iced out: Since she was first elected, Bush has frequently ignored or rejected outreach from mainstream Jewish leaders. But local Jewish leaders said her post-Oct. 7 activity was a breaking point, with one describing it as “being dangerous to the safety of Jews, both here in the States, as well as the safety of Jews in the Jewish state.”
Read the full story here. tech talk Meta to end ban of word 'shaheed' after yearlong review  CHESNOT/GETTY IMAGES Meta announced last week it will end its blanket ban on the word "shaheed,” an Arabic word commonly translated into English as “martyr.” The lift came after a yearlong review by the social media giant’s Oversight Board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently. The Oversight Board “recommended allowing use of the word ‘shaheed’ in all instances unless content otherwise violates our policies or is shared with one or more of three signals of violence,” according to a recommendations update posted online on Tuesday, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider.
Multiple meanings: According to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, the review was a result of the word accounting for more content removals on the company's platforms than any other single word or phrase. In March, the review determined that Meta's rules on "shaheed" failed to account for the word's variety of meanings and resulted in the removal of content not aimed at condoning violence. The board said that it “considered concerns that the policy may be contributing to censorship of those commenting on situations like the violence seen in conflict, including in Gaza and Sudan.”
Read the full story here. book shelf Amazon reverses rejection of book of Oct. 7 testimonies  Amazon changed course after declining to sell Testimonies Without Boundaries, Israel: October 7th 2023, a book about Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, written by Alon Penzel, 23, a former spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. The book features testimony, some of which is graphic, from ZAKA volunteers who collected human remains from the attack sites, from survivors of the Nova Party massacre and from workers at Israel’s Forensic Medicine Institute, as well as evidence Penzel himself viewed, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
U-turn: The e-commerce giant made the title available on its site after JI inquired as to why the book was rejected. Amazon did not reply to JI. Its initial rejection message said that the book is "in violation of [its] content guidelines." The book was published in cooperation with Israel-Is, an organization that seeks to empower Israelis to improve the country's image. Israeli-Is CEO Nimrod Palmach, who wrote the book's foreword, was one of numerous Israelis who drove to the Gaza border on Oct. 7 to rescue civilians, even before he was called up to IDF reserve duty.
Read the full story here. | Changes on the Quad: In The Atlantic, Eliot Cohen reflects on the conclusion of his more than four decades in academia, amid a shifting campus environment. “There are many thousands of dedicated and capable teachers and scholars out there, no doubt. But I wonder whether in academe overall, the single-minded and inflexible commitment to the value embodied in the mottoes of my two universities — ‘Truth’ and ‘The truth will make you free’ — still stands. The replication crisis, first detected in the discipline of academic psychology, makes one wonder. I suspect, however, that that value will flourish, together with broad intellectual culture and a genuine breadth of perspectives, but in different institutions than in the past, and I look forward to that.” [TheAtlantic]
The Jaffa Difference: For The Times of Israel, Zvi Smith explores how local officials in Jaffa kept violence from overtaking the mixed Arab-Jewish community in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. “War has now been raging for nine months, but despite — or perhaps thanks to — fears that October 2023 would end up like May 2021, there has been no fresh outbreak of violence between Jews and Arabs in Jaffa or any of Israel’s other mixed cities. Jaffa’s Jews and Arabs tend to agree that shock, pragmatism and heavy policing, both by law enforcement and as part of grass-roots monitoring within communities, have been primary factors in avoiding a repeat of May 2021. According to a source within the police, Israeli security services made 2,000 arrests in Jaffa alone on October 7 as they sought to crack down on social media messages that could be construed as support for the Hamas-led massacre. ‘It was a deterrent,’ admitted Majed, a popular local Islamic figure, about the arrests. Overall, he said, ‘people feared returning to those days, because we all paid a heavy price.’” [TOI] | Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | The Capitol Hill office of Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) was vandalized, days after anti-Israel protesters demonstrated outside the home of the Illinois congressman, who is Jewish…
Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), who is challenging Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in New York’s 17th Congressional District, will not appear on the Working Families Party line in November after falling short last month in his bid for the party’s nomination; Democratic and WFP officials alleged that GOP officials had planted former Republican Anthony Frascone in an effort to keep Jones off the ballot line…
Through the lens of a family friend’s 1974 kidnapping and her own experiences, Taffy Brodesser-Akner reflects on the concept of trauma ahead of the release of her sophomore novel, Long Island Compromise…
Willow Bay and Disney CEO Bob Iger are in advanced talks to acquire a controlling stake in Los Angeles’ Angel City FC for upwards of $50 million…
The New York Times spotlights David Ellison following the Skydance executive’s agreement to merge with Paramount...
Tech journalist Casey Newton interviewed Instagram head Adam Mosseri about Threads, a year after the Instagram-linked app’s rollout…
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed MP Anthony Housefather as special adviser on Jewish community relations and antisemitism…
Basketball player Ryan Turell will join Israel’s Ironi Nes Ziona after two years in the NBA’s G League…
Israel and the U.N. are discussing the possibility of deploying Elon Musk’s Starlink communications system in Gaza, which U.N. officials say would be necessary for its aid organizations to resume distribution efforts in the enclave…
Hezbollah launched a drone attack on Israel’s Mt. Hermon in the Golan Heights…
An American civilian’s condition is deteriorating after being injured by a Hezbollah missile barrage in Israel’s north…
The Atlantic’s Kim Ghattas considers the potential outcomes of a full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah…
An Israeli man died after contracting a brain-eating amoeba last week while swimming in northern Israel…
Heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s presidential election, defeating former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili…
Iranian authorities arrested a lawyer and university professor who had publicly criticized the regime in Tehran for its handling of the 2022 protests that swept the country…
Poet Stanley Moss died at 99…
Film producer Jon Landau, who collaborated with James Cameron on “Avatar” and “Titanic,” died at 63…
Dr. Yitzhak Yifa, who appeared in the iconic image of three Israeli paratroopers standing in front of the Western Wall during the Six-Day War, died at 81… |  JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images Supporters and relatives of Israelis held hostage in Gaza demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding their loved ones’ releases. |  Sebastian Scheiner/AP Former member of Knesset who had served as Israel's foreign minister, justice minister, agriculture minister and housing minister, Tziporah Malka "Tzipi" Livni turns 66...
Retired in 2016 after 26 years as executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, Arthur "Art" Abramson turns 76... Democratic candidate for president of the U.S. in 2024, she restarted her campaign last week, Marianne Deborah Williamson turns 72... Mayor of Farmington Hills, Mich., until last year, she is a former member of the Michigan State House of Representatives, Vicki Barnett turns 70... Attorney and Democratic politician from Texas, Barbara Ann Radnofsky turns 68... Attorney and a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium in the Obama administration, Howard Gutman turns 68... Partner of the global law firm Dentons, when he was elected attorney general of Georgia in 2010, he became the first Jewish person in Georgia to win statewide office, Samuel Scott Olens turns 67... Retired rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Beaumont, Texas, Rabbi Joshua S. Taub... Co-president of Rochester, N.Y.-based Hahn Automotive Warehouse, he is on the board of governors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, Eli N. Futerman... SVP and COO of the Jewish Communal Fund, Marina W. Lewin... Washington, D.C., bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ron Kampeas turns 64... Consultant strategist, policy advisor and writer, he served as corporate counsel to Allstate Insurance for 28 years, Steven Richard Sheffey turns 64... Writer, television producer, ventriloquist and puppeteer, Mallory Hurwitz Tarcher Lewis turns 62... Managing principal at DGA's Albright Stonebridge Group, he is a former Clinton White House senior staffer, Dan K. Rosenthal turns 58... Former ice hockey player, her three sons were 7th, 1st and 4th picks overall, respectively, in the 2018, 2019 and 2021 NHL Draft, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes turns 56... Higher education reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Douglas Belkin... New York City comptroller, Bradford S. Lander turns 55... Managing director at Harbor Group International, Meir Raskas... Israeli film director, producer and researcher, Eyal Boers turns 49... EVP of the Atlantic Council, Jenna H. Ben-Yehuda... Atlanta-based educator, activist and writer, Robbie Medwed... Sports journalist, known for his coverage of mixed martial arts and professional wrestling, Ariel Jacob Helwani turns 42... Senior associate at Horizons Law and Consulting, Alon Sachar... Assistant to the president, White House staff secretary and director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Stefanie Feldman turns 36... Diplomatic correspondent at the Israeli public broadcasting corporation, Amichai Stein... | | | | | |
