| | Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how debate over a potential Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement is playing out among Republicans and report on yesterday’s Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, the Trump administration’s nominee for defense secretary. We also report on reflections from Secretary of State Tony Blinken and antisemitism envoy Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt as they prepare to depart their postings and have the scoop on an Israeli government effort to provide support to combat Los Angeles’ wildfires. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Shari Redstone, Rep. Mike Waltz and Ivanka Trump.
Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - President Joe Biden will deliver a farewell address from the Oval Office at 8 p.m. ET today.
- Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt will hold her final Jewish community briefing this afternoon.
- There are a slew of confirmation hearings today on Capitol Hill, among them Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the incoming Trump administration’s nominee to be secretary of state, and John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, who will testify this morning in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee, respectively. Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, and Gov. Kristi Noem, the nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, will also be testifying today.
- Elsewhere on the Hill, Democrats will choose the leaders of the subcommittees of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
| President-elect Donald Trump loves a deal. But at what cost?
That’s the question being asked in political and diplomatic circles as negotiators in Qatar edge closer to a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas, with days to go before Trump’s inauguration.
The exact parameters of the deal are still being negotiated, but its initial stage will likely see 33 hostages released over a six-week period, in exchange for as many as 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including dozens serving life sentences.
Trump has warned Hamas there will be “hell to pay” if all the hostages aren’t released by the time he takes office. But under the outline of the emerging deal, that goal will be far from accomplished, with hostages being released over a monthslong period. Adding to the anxiety in pro-Israel circles is Trump’s latest threat that “there will be a lot of trouble” if a deal isn’t reached, even one that could involve painful concessions from Israel. Those comments sounded like they were directed as much toward Israel as Hamas.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, is zipping around the region holding meetings with key stakeholders (including a rare Shabbat meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and issuing his own warnings on the need to reach an agreement.
The purported deal — and Trump’s push for an agreement to be reached before Inauguration Day — has divided the foreign policy establishment and Capitol Hill.
Within Israel, more than half the country supports an agreement that secures the release of the remaining 98 hostages in exchange for Hamas’ demands to end the war — a survey conducted last week by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and released last night found 58% of respondents were in favor of such an agreement. Even as Netanyahu has been seen at times as a roadblock to a final agreement, that he is willing to cross the finish line with this deal as Jan. 20 nears underscores the degree to which pressure from Trump as well as a national exhaustion in Israel after 467 days of war are factoring in to the decision-making process.
The deal sets back one of the Israeli government’s key war aims: “total victory” over Hamas. By leaving the terror group hobbled but still intact, the threat remains. Adding to that concern, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said yesterday that U.S. intelligence estimates that Hamas has recruited approximately the number of members that it has lost since the start of the war. (More on that below.) Israeli officials dispute this, and others say that the recruitment effort is dulled by Hamas' lack of resources, training and senior leadership.
The emerging deal is putting some pro-Israel Trump supporters who were vocal critics of President Joe Biden’s diplomacy in an uncomfortable position. The deal that Trump is championing, at first glance, has the same parameters as the one Biden outlined over the summer — even Israel’s cabinet secretary, Yossi Fuchs, acknowledged it’s the same deal as the one negotiated in May.
But that was before Hamas executed six hostages and before the bodies of other hostages who survived the Oct.7 attack were found, underscoring a new urgency in the effort to secure the release of the remaining hostages. And it was also before Israel killed the top echelon of Hamas leadership, including Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, which also complicated negotiation efforts by leaving no sole decision-maker in charge of Hamas’ role in the talks.
The deal includes vague “security mechanisms” in the key Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors. Israeli officials briefing the media would not detail how the mechanisms would keep arms from being smuggled into Gaza from Egypt and from southern to northern Gaza. When Jewish Insider asked if Israel would oversee the arrangements, the officials said the matter was still under negotiation.
With the decapitation of Hezbollah, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the degradation of Iran’s air-defense systems, Israel is in a stronger position than it was last summer. What Hamas leadership has survived largely exists outside of the Gaza Strip, and even they have been forced to reportedly relocate and shuffle between Qatar and Turkey. All of that has left Hamas open to accepting a deal quite similar to the one it rejected last year.
But it’s looking like Trump is potentially more concerned with making a deal for the sake of promoting a deal. Details of the deal are being received skeptically in private by many Republican lawmakers, but if history is any indication, most will publicly hold the line for Trump.
The big question going forward is what Trump’s approach to Israel will be in his second term. Will Trump, ever the deal-maker, look to strike his own nuclear deal with Iran, instead of backing efforts to take out the Islamic regime’s nuclear program militarily now that Iran’s air defense has been severely diminished, as many hawks have advocated? Or will Israel receive other benefits and security guarantees in exchange for making some of the painful concessions outlined in the hostage deal?
Time will tell. Most of Trump’s foreign policy team are strong backers of Israel and support a muscular approach in dealing with the threats in the region. But if Trump’s zest for dealmaking ends up trumping Israel’s security needs, many Republicans may be forced to choose between holding onto their principles or surrendering some of them at the knee of politics. | deal disagreement Republican lawmakers raise concerns about contours of Israel-Hamas hostage deal  AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s push for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration, some Republicans are raising concerns that the terms of the agreement currently being negotiated could hurt Israel’s ability to defend itself and eliminate future terrorist threats, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Behind the scenes, congressional Republicans have begun fretting that Trump could force them to back a deal that involves terms they’ve opposed for over a year.
Reservations: Some lawmakers and senior staffers have privately discussed the issue among themselves, though none of them have taken additional steps beyond engaging with Trump’s transition team about their concerns. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he was “really in the skeptical column for anything related to Hamas.” Tillis expressed concern that the terror organization was included in negotiations at all. “I feel like they’re the wrong people to be brokering the deal because, in some respects, that means you’re a part of the future of Gaza. That’s a bad thing,” Tillis told JI.
Read the full story here with additional comments from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Kennedy (R-LA).
On the Mike: Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), the Trump administration’s incoming national security advisor, addressed the emerging hostage deal on Dan Senor’s “Call Me Back” podcast Tuesday night, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. “Those have been brutally tough negotiations. I hate the fact that we even have to enter them, into them, with a terrorist group like Hamas, but we need to get our people out and then prosecute our objectives in this conflict,” Waltz said. confirmation cross-examination Hegseth: Israel should kill ‘every last member of Hamas’  ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES Pete Hegseth, the veteran and Fox News personality turned President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of defense, testified at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that his Christian faith dictates his commitment to supporting Israel and that he wants to see the U.S. ally kill “every last member of Hamas.” The hearing provided few specific details, however, on how the likely next secretary of defense plans to approach the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, which have seen U.S. troops under fire from and engaged in active strikes on Iranian proxies, or the prospect of more direct conflict between the U.S. and Iran, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
Identity [and] politics: After Hegseth was interrupted by several protesters affiliated with the radical group Code Pink, who called him a misogynist and a Christian Zionist while he delivered his opening statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked Hegseth to share where he stands on the Jewish state. “I’m not really sure why that is a bad thing,” Cotton said. “I’m a Christian, I’m a Zionist. Zionism is that the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the ancient holy land where they lived since the dawn of history. Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist?” Hegseth replied: “I am a Christian and I robustly support the State of Israel and its existential defense and the way America comes alongside them as their great ally.”
Read the full story here. final forewarning Blinken warns Israel to plan for day-after in Gaza as clock ticks on hostage deal  ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES In his final major address on Middle East policy, Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Tuesday outlined the Biden administration’s vision for Gaza after the war between Israel and Hamas ends — while negotiators in Qatar rush to finalize the terms of a cease-fire and hostage-release deal that has not yet been signed, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
What he said: “I believe we will get a cease-fire,” Blinken said at the Atlantic Council, stating it could come in the final days of the Biden administration or the early days of President-elect Donald Trump’s term. “From the outset, we also recognized that we couldn’t afford to wait until a cease-fire to plan for what would follow it.” The outgoing secretary of state outlined a plan for what President Joe Biden and his foreign policy team hope to see in Gaza and the broader Middle East after the war ends — though that team will not be around to implement the vision, one that Trump may not share.
Read the full story here. parting words Lipstadt: U.N.’s Guterres said U.N. Special Rapporteur Albanese is ‘a horrible person’  NOAM GALAI/GETTY IMAGES The U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, told reporters at a roundtable on Tuesday — her last before departing her role — that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres had, in a one-on-one conversation with her, condemned Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation on human rights in the Palestinian territories, whom the U.S. has repeatedly criticized for antisemitic comments, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The outgoing envoy said that, during an event at a synagogue during the Munich Security Conference, she had spoken to Guterres about the U.S. government’s concerns with Albanese. In Lipstadt’s retelling, Guterres responded, twice, “She’s a horrible person.”
Communal response: Reflecting on the rise of antisemitism since Oct. 7, Lipstadt said she believes that the organized Jewish community overlooked and underestimated the extent to which anti-Israel and pro-Hamas groups had built up support on college campuses. She said she’s “glad the organizations are reassessing” and are adapting to the new landscape. She also emphasized that antisemitism is now impacting individual Jews’ “personal lives in a way that we haven’t seen since the ‘50s and early ‘60s.” The spike, she said, has brought antisemitism issues “into sharper focus than I ever imagined,” and the global landscape has “changed tremendously,” with antisemites becoming more emboldened and brazen.
Read the full story here. incendiary sermon Michigan lawmakers criticize Dearborn imam’s violent, antisemitic rhetoric  SCREENSHOT/MEMRI Michigan lawmakers from both parties are condemning Ahmed Al-Qazwini, a Dearborn, Mich.-area imam and Shiite scholar, for saying in a sermon last month that killing Zionists is “a win-win situation,” Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
What he said: “Can you lose against a Zionist in the battlefield?” Al-Qazwini said during a Dec. 13 sermon at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, a heavily Arab American area. “It's impossible to lose, because there is one of two scenarios, one of two outcomes. Either you kill him and you send him to hell, you've prevailed, or he kills you and he sends you to paradise. What other option is there? How can you lose? It's a win-win situation,” Al-Qazwini said during the sermon, a video of which was posted on the Middle East Media Research Institute’s website.
Slamming the comments: Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told JI, “These remarks were shocking. He glorified violence and hatred, and his antisemitic rhetoric has no place in Michigan — or anywhere in our country for that matter. I unequivocally condemn his statements.” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said, “Advocating for violence is reprehensible. Full Stop. In Michigan, our diverse faiths and diverse beliefs are a strength.”
Read the full story here with additional reactions from Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Lisa McClain (R-MI) and Bill Huizenga (R-MI). emergency assistance Israel offers to aid California wildfire response, and foot the bill  MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES The Israeli government has offered to send aid to California to assist with the response to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area, which have destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least two dozen people, and said it would pay all expenses associated with that assistance, according to a letter obtained by Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. “In light of the deep, long-standing friendship and alliance between our nations, which in recent years has proved itself stronger than ever, we would like to extend our support and help our friends in their time of need,” Raful Engel, the director general of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security said in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Sending support: The Israeli official offered to send a delegation of “expert firefighters who specialize in fire and rescue operations to help combat these fires and share their experience in order to minimize the damage inflicted on property and more importantly on human lives.” An official from the Israeli National Fire and Rescue Authority told JI the delegation is set to leave for California tonight. Newsom’s director of communications, Izzy Gardon, said in a statement, “We’re grateful to Israel and many other nations in offering their support to California. Emergency Officials are currently working with our international partners on planning and mobilization.”
Read the full story here. | Ripe for Rouhani: The Atlantic’s Arash Azizi makes the case for a potential comeback by the former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as the Islamic Republic navigates economic woes and quickly changing regional dynamics. “Iran’s current weakness and desperation offer Rouhani and his allies an opportunity to wrest back power. Doing so could put them in a favorable spot for that inevitable moment when Khamenei dies, and the next supreme leader must be chosen. Rouhani has some qualities that will serve him well in this internal power struggle. Unlike the soft-spoken reformist clerics, such as former President Mohammad Khatami, he is a wily player who spent decades in top security positions before becoming president. (Khatami had been Iran’s chief librarian and culture minister; Rouhani was the national security adviser.) During his two-term presidency, Rouhani confronted rival power centers, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, without fear. His experience negotiating with the West goes back well before the Obama era. In early 2000s, he led Iran’s first nuclear negotiating team, earning the moniker ‘the diplomatic sheikh.’” [TheAtlantic]
The Comeback Kids: Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins compares the Washington Commanders’ fortunes under Josh Harris’ ownership to its losing record under former owner Dan Snyder. “Snyder got what he deserved for his years of torturous mismanagement, the smutty workplace and manipulations. Karma came calling. He won’t be leaving the team to his kids, having been forced into a sale. All that has really happened in Washington is this: An ownership collective led by Josh Harris, with no need for individual recognition, knew what it didn’t know. It simply hired two solid and well-established experts who came highly recommended in [general manager Adam] Peters and [head coach Dan] Quinn — and then allowed them to apply their professional knowledge unimpeded. After the Commanders’ playoff victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Harris and limited partner Magic Johnson were asked how they did it. ‘You said, “What does it take?”’ Johnson replied to reporters. ‘New vision, new owner with a strategy, picking the right people — first our coach, Coach Quinn, Adam Peters, and then we all step out of the way and let them do their job.’” [WashPost]
Toxic TikTok: In The Times of Israel, Jewish Federations of North America President and CEO Eric Fingerhut explains his organization’s support for legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. “The number one concern of Jewish communities across America today is the rise of antisemitism. We cannot possibly hope to fight back if we don’t address the crisis of antisemitism on the most popular social media platforms.TikTok’s contribution to this problem is particularly egregious. One study found that people who use TikTok for 30 minutes or more daily are significantly more likely to hold antisemitic or anti-Israel views than comparable users of Instagram and X. Another study found that in just one-year, antisemitic comments on TikTok rose 912%. Worse, evidence was clearly available – most prominently provided by a former TikTok employee who tried to address the problem internally – that TikTok’s bias is deliberate, not some technical issue caused by the number of posts on one topic or another.” [TOI]
The Oracle of SNL: The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison profiles “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels. “Cast members and writers have speculated for years about the secret behind Michaels’s extraordinary tenure. ‘It’s him and Hitchcock,’ John Mulaney told me. ‘No one else has had this kind of longevity.’ Half of them think that Michaels has repeatedly been able to remake the show for a new audience because he’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent, a producer nonpareil. The other half wonder whether Michaels, gnomic and almost comically elusive, is a blank screen onto which they’ve all projected their hopes and fears and dark jokes — whether he, like the cramped stages in ‘S.N.L.’’s Studio 8H, is just a backdrop for the ever-shifting brilliance of the country’s best comic minds.” [NewYorker] | Project Shema launched a new online antisemitism course on LinkedIn Learning, the world's largest workforce development platform. The first and only antisemitism course there, accessible globally with content in 20+ languages, is free through January; watch it here.
Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a bill to reimpose a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation on the Houthis and sanction some of their leaders...
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Dr. Robert Daroff, a distinguished neurologist who during the Vietnam War made history as the first in his profession to serve in a combat zone, died at 88; Daroff was the father of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff… |  office of senate minority leader chuck schumer Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) honored Holocaust survivor Pina Frassineti Wax on the occasion of her 100th birthday. During a birthday celebration in Long Island, Schumer presented Wax with a flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol. |  Roy Rochlin/Getty Images Actress, singer and writer based in NYC, she starred as Hodel in Bartlett Sher's acclaimed revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” Samantha Massell turns 35...
Senior counsel at Covington & Burling, he was previously the domestic policy advisor to President Carter, U.S. ambassador to the EU and deputy secretary of Treasury, Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat turns 82... Partner in BECO Management LLC and vice chair of the Jewish Policy Center, Michael David Epstein turns 80... University professor at Columbia University, he won the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Martin Chalfie turns 78... President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for 16 years, then a member of the Knesset for nine years, Avishay Braverman turns 77... Longtime member of Congregation B’nai B’rith in Santa Barbara, Calif., Madelyn Silver Palley... Founder of Prospect Global, Toni G. Verstandig... Chairman and CEO of Stagwell Global, Mark Penn turns 71... Football head coach and general manager, he has worked in both the NFL and CFL, Marc Trestman turns 69... President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David M. Zaslav turns 65... Rabbi at Bar-Ilan University's Institute of Advanced Torah Studies, he holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, Michael Avraham turns 65... Rabbi of Rumson (N.J.) Jewish Center at Congregation B’nai Israel, Douglas Sagal... Cryptographer, computer security specialist, writer, he is a fellow and lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School, Bruce Schneier... Trial lawyer and white-collar criminal defense attorney in the NYC office of Gibson Dunn, Barry H. Berke turns 61... White House deputy press secretary in the Bush 43 administration, now a podcast host, Adam L. Levine turns 56... Filmmaker and educator, her films are aimed at an audience of Haredi women, Tali Avrahami turns 56... Israeli journalist for Maariv, based in Poland, Nissan Tzur turns 52... Former deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Belgium, she was elected as a member of the European Parliament in 2024, Sophie Wilmès turns 50... Basketball analyst for Fox Sports, he is also the men's basketball head coach at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, Doug Gottlieb turns 49... Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge Steven Menashi turns 46... Israeli-Italian model, television personality and actor, Jonathan Kashanian turns 44... Editor emeritus of the Daily Wire and political commentator, Ben Shapiro turns 41... Investigative reporter at The New York Times, Sarah Kliff... Real estate investor, Hershy Tannenbaum... CNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Jeremy Diamond turns 35... | | | | | |
