| | Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on EPA head Lee Zeldin’s ties to Qatar following the release of financial disclosures linking the former congressman to Doha’s ruling family, and report on the Supreme Court’s plans to take up a case tied to the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” program. We also talk to freshman Rep. Laura Gillen about her approach to Iran, and look at a restitution project that seeks to reunite the descendants of Holocaust victims and survivors with books owned by their relatives. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Tom Rose, Alex Isenstadt and Deputy Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Morgan Ortagus.
Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - A full Senate vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence is expected to take place this week.
- Israeli negotiators returned from Qatar this morning following discussions on the implementation of the ongoing hostage-release and cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. More below.
- The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is hosting a web event at noon focused on Turkey’s expansionist efforts across the Middle East.
- In Paris, France is hosting the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit today and tomorrow. Vice President J.D. Vance is slated to attend before traveling on to Germany later this week for the Munich Security Conference.
| What was meant to be a joyous homecoming of three Israeli hostages on Saturday quickly turned into concern — and a renewed sense of urgency to free those remaining in captivity — as the first images of the men, who appeared frail and gaunt, shocked Israelis watching the live proceedings.
Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy were released in a spectacle that mirrored those that have taken place over the last several weeks: Red Cross officials, appearing onstage in front of a banner reading, in English, “WE’RE THE FLOOD .. THE WAR’S NEXT DAY,” participated in a ceremony in which the three men, severely weakened by nearly 16 months in captivity, were paraded onstage before being handed over to the aid agency, which shuttled them to the IDF to be reunited with their families and receive medical treatment.
Ben Ami was reunited with his wife, who was also taken hostage and freed in November 2023, and daughters. But the celebration over his homecoming was overshadowed by the more emotionally complex returns of Levy and Sharabi. Levy, who had arrived at the Nova music festival shortly before Hamas began its massacre, survived repeated attacks on the bomb shelter in which he and his wife, Einav, were hiding. Einav Levy was killed in the attack, which Levy, who was reunited with the couple's 3-year-old son on Saturday, only learned upon his release. Sharabi’s wife and daughters were killed in their Kibbutz Be’eri home on Oct. 7; Sharabi first learned of their deaths upon his release.
Their release comes as discussions over the second phase of the cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, during which Hamas would free the remaining living hostages in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from key locations in the Gaza Strip, are supposed to be underway, as per the deal.
But an Israeli negotiating team that arrived in Qatar on Sunday and returned on Monday had a a limited mandate, restricted to technical aspects of the first stage of the deal and the possibility of extending it and adding more hostages to the list of 33 releases set to be complete by the end of the first six weeks of the agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to hold an assessment today with a small group of officials about Israel’s current position — on the heels of the prime minister’s D.C. visit — on the second phase of the deal. Tomorrow, the security cabinet is set to meet to discuss the topic.
As pressure mounts from the opposition, hostage families and members of the public to complete the deal, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned against crossing a “red line” that would incentivize future hostage-taking and even tougher demands for their release. That warning came as new details came to light over the weekend about the conditions in which some of the male hostages are kept in — some are held in chains, starved, gagged, tortured and with untreated injuries from the Oct. 7 attacks.
Speaking to reporters en route to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday, President Donald Trump aired his own concerns about the state of the three returned hostages, saying the men “looked like Holocaust survivors. They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated. It looked like many years ago, the Holocaust survivors, and I don’t know how much longer we can take that.”
Trump also doubled down on his suggestion to relocate the entire Gaza population, saying he was “committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished.”
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday that Cairo plans to host a summit for Arab leaders at the end of the month focused on the future of Gaza. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, rejected a suggestion made by Netanyahu last week that the kingdom absorb displaced Gazans. | doha dealings Lee Zeldin reveals Qatar ties in financial disclosures  KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES Newly confirmed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently revealed in financial disclosure forms that he was paid consulting fees by an investor who is a member of the Qatari royal family. Heritage Advisors, Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani’s London-based venture capital firm, paid Zeldin "compensation exceeding $5,000" from April of 2023 through December of that year, according to documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics as required for Cabinet nominees, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
What we know: Zeldin did not specify what work he did for the fund or exactly how much he was compensated in the filing, though he did state that the role did not require him to register as a foreign agent. A spokesperson for Zeldin did not respond to JI’s request for comment on the work or if it impacted his position on Qatari state sponsorship of U.S. think tanks and universities, which the former New York congressman once vocally opposed. Zeldin was a vocal critic of the Gulf monarchy during his time as a member of Congress from 2015-2023, publicly cautioning against Qatari government influence in the U.S. amid its ongoing global influence campaign, in which the Qataris have spent billions targeting U.S. academia, politics and critical industries.
Read the full story here. pay-for-slay program Supreme Court to hear case on Palestinian Authority’s ‘martyr’ payments  getty images The Supreme Court is set to hear a case in the coming months to decide whether American victims of Palestinian terror attacks can sue the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority for damages based on support for such attacks through the “pay-to-slay” program that compensates individuals who have carried out attacks as well as their families, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Background: The Supreme Court cases — Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization and United States v. Palestine Liberation Organization, which the court will hear jointly — pertain to a decades-long series of litigation efforts by American terror victims and their families to sue the PLO and PA. Federal courts have repeatedly struck down legislation passed by Congress to enable such efforts, generating what amounts to a back-and-forth between Congress and the courts. The current case pertains to a 2019 law, the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), which Congress passed on a bipartisan basis specifically in response to those previous court rulings, which would assert jurisdiction over the PLO and PA in U.S. courts so long as they conducted activity inside the United States.
Read the full story here. tough talk Gillen: U.S. needs to ‘get more hawkish and get more aggressive against Iran’  ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES Freshman Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) expressed support for some of the Trump administration’s recent moves against Iran and its proxy groups in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod last week, saying the U.S. needs to “get more hawkish and get more aggressive against Iran.”
Iran angle: Gillen, during a sit-down in her new congressional office, described herself as “hawkish” on Iran, calling for the U.S. to be “really tough” on the regime, through strong sanctions cutting off funding to the regime and its proxy groups. She said she supported the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure sanctions campaign and its redesignation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization — something the Biden administration refused to do. She said she didn’t “think the United States did enough in response to attacks by the Houthis.” But she was more skeptical of President Donald Trump’s interest in a new nuclear deal with Iran, saying that she was “very much against” the original nuclear agreement and that Iran can’t be trusted.
Read the full interview here. bibi's boost Netanyahu to Jewish students in D.C.: ‘You’ve gotta fight’  courtesy Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a straightforward message for the 30 Jewish college students and recent graduates he met with on Friday in Washington to hear their concerns about antisemitism: Fight back. “If you fight, you’ll be respected. If you bow your head, you’ll be despised and not respected. You’ve gotta fight. That’s the most important thing,” Netanyahu told the roundtable of students, who came from universities including Harvard, Georgetown Law School, George Washington University and University of Pennsylvania, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Haley Cohen report.
Who was there: The meeting, which took place at the Willard InterContinental Hotel near the White House, was organized by the Israeli Embassy. Attendees included Sara Netanyahu, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Netanyahu advisor Caroline Glick and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad). Student speakers included Julia Wax Vanderwiel, founder and president of Georgetown Law Zionists; Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard graduate who is suing the university over its handling of antisemitism; and Sabrina Soffer, president of Chabad at GW. “Watching the energy and the interaction between the prime minister and these future leaders was uplifting and full of hope,” said Shemtov.
Read the full story here.
Shabbat with the PM: Several of Netanyahu’s donors and associates joined him for Shabbat at the Willard, including: Simon Falic and members of his family; Sonny Sassoon; Moshe Levy; and former WeWork CEO-turned-real estate investor Adam Neumann, who gave the dvar Torah at Shabbat morning services and led singing and dancing. (Netanyahu attended Friday night kiddush, but not Saturday morning services.) The Falic family prepared siddurs and tallit cases prepared with "Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Visit to Washington - Shvat 5785" printed on them in Hebrew. warsaw watch Trump names former Jerusalem Post CEO Tom Rose as ambassador to Poland  Screenshot: Notes from Poland President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he had tapped Tom Rose, former publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post and a close confidant of former Vice President Mike Pence, as the next U.S. ambassador to Poland, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Background: Rose, an Orthodox Jew and a pro-Israel stalwart, has been a personal friend of Pence’s for over three decades and a top advisor going back to his days as governor of Indiana. He served as Pence’s chief strategist and senior advisor during his vice presidency in the first Trump administration. After Trump and Pence left office in 2021, Rose told JI that he was engaged in several professional ventures, including newspaper investments and consulting for private equity firms.
Read the full story here. final chapter Restitution project genealogists track down rightful heirs of Nazi-looted books  courtesy When Amos Guiora saw the email drop into his inbox he had no idea what to make of it. He didn’t recognize the sender, but the subject line startled him: Schlomo Nathan Goldberg, the name of his paternal grandfather who perished in Auschwitz in 1944. The message came from an amateur genealogist who was volunteering with the Looted Books Project, a joint initiative of JewishGen’s Kalikow Genealogy Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Leo Baeck Institute, both in New York. The project has come to the aid of Leibl Rosenberg, an official representative of the Jewish community in Nuremberg, Germany, who has made it his life’s mission to restitute 9,000 books that were looted from victims of the Nazi regime and found in the library of the notorious Nazi Julius Streicher at the end of World War II, Lianne Kolirin reports for Jewish Insider.
Decades of work: Rosenberg has spent more than 30 years researching the provenance of these books, which are currently held at the Nuremberg Municipal Library, in order to return them to their rightful heirs. The number of books being repatriated is now on the rise thanks to the scores of volunteers who have come onboard. In just three months they have tracked down 87 heirs — some of whom are inheriting multiple titles — including Guiora. Guiora is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of four volumes of Talmudic text, all of which bear his grandfather’s name in Hebrew and are being dispatched at the expense of the German government.
Read the full story here. | With Blood on Their Hands: In The New York Times, Meytal Ofer, whose father was killed by a Palestinian 12 years ago, reflects on the terrorist’s release as part of the cease-fire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas and considers the long-term prospects for peace. “Many of the 1,000 prisoners who are being released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages have the blood of people like my father on their hands, some of it barely dry. Behind every heartwarming video of a hostage embracing family members is a family like mine, being forced to relive our own grief. Knowing that the man who killed my father will walk out of prison stirs complex emotions, but I know it is the right decision to release these prisoners, if that is what it takes to save the hostages who have been held for almost 500 days. I believe nothing could be more sacred than bringing the hostages home — not my grief, which will not end, and not even my father, whose life I cannot restore. Not if we can bring back to life my fellow countrymen who are still held in the tunnels under Gaza.” [NYTimes]
Who Should Own Auschwitz?: In The Wall Street Journal, David Mamet posits that ownership of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp should be given to Israel, citing the precedent set by France and Canada in World War I. “The true lesson of the Nazis’ depravity is that all of us have a proclivity for atrocity. Our human capacity for evil is neither limited nor expungeable. It surfaced, undeniably, in the massacre of Oct. 7, and continued in the world’s reaction: hatred of Israel and the Jews. Human depravity is universal. Approaching 80, I wonder less at its presence than at its absence. The Battle of Vimy Ridge took place over three days in April 1917. It was fought and won in France by Canadian troops, four divisions fighting together, with 3,598 killed and some 7,000 wounded. It was a signal victory of Canadian arms. … Canadian forces were fighting in France, for France. In 1922 France ceded the site of the battlefield to Canada for use as a memorial park. The names of the Canadian fallen are carved on the Vimy Ridge Monument and it is maintained by Canada.” [WSJ]
Power Play: The Financial Times’ Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper and Richard Salame look at how Hezbollah is using its control of social services to rebuild support following its degradation by Israel. “Hizbollah, long Lebanon’s most powerful political and military force, is reeling from its worst ever defeat. In over a year of conflict before a ceasefire in November, Israel not only killed thousands of fighters and decimated its senior leadership, but caused enormous destruction in Shia-majority communities from which Hizbollah draws support. The fall of ally Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria dealt another blow, cutting off vital supply chains between Hizbollah and its patron Iran. With the group now under pressure, keeping the faith of constituents such as Umm Hassan is vital to its future. Central to this effort is Hizbollah’s sprawling network of social welfare organisations including schools, hospitals, and its construction arm Jihad al-Bina, which has deployed hundreds of engineers to survey damaged homes and start repairing its heartland.” [FT] | Join ADL, University of Michigan President Santa Ono and leading voices on March 3-4 in NYC at Never Is Now the world’s largest summit on antisemitism and hate! Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | President Donald Trump revoked the security clearances of a number of senior Biden administration officials, including former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan…
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Actor Tony Roberts, who frequently appeared in Woody Allen films, died at 85… |  Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images Bannawat Saethao, one of the Thai hostages released from Hamas captivity last week, reunites with his family after arriving at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Sunday. |  Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Laureus Swimmer who won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Mark Spitz turns 75...
Founder and owner of the River Island fashion brand and clothing chain, Bernard Lewis turns 99... CEO of Metromedia Company and a board member of cruise line operator Carnival Corporation, Stuart Subotnick turns 83... Rabbi in Vienna, Austria, in the 1980s, in Munich in the 1990s and in Berlin since 1997, Yitshak Ehrenberg turns 75... CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Robert Allen "Bob" Iger turns 74... Miami-based philanthropist Jayne Harris Abess... Host of CNBC's “Mad Money,” James J. "Jim" Cramer turns 70... CEO emerita of D.C.-based Jewish Women International, Loribeth Weinstein... Ethiopian-born, former member of Knesset for the Likud party, he is an activist for the Falash Mura community, Avraham Neguise turns 67... Syndicated newspaper columnist for the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby turns 66... U.S. senator (D-DE) since the beginning of this year, Lisa Blunt Rochester turns 63... Former NASA astronaut, famous for his mezuzah in the International Space Station, he is a consultant for Elon Musk's SpaceX, Garrett Reisman turns 57... Member of the Maryland House of Delegates since 2003, Anne R. Kaiser turns 57... Senior director of philanthropic engagement for the central division of the Anti-Defamation League, Matthew Feldman... Executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, Howie Beigelman... Israeli pop star and part of the duo "TYP" also known as The Young Professionals, Ivri Lider turns 51... Co-founder and principal at the bipartisan public policy firm Klein/Johnson Group, Israel "Izzy" Klein... Israeli musician, David "Dudu" Tassa turns 48... CEO at Citizen Data, Mindy Finn turns 44... COO of Richmond-based Untangled Media Group, Michelle Levi Noe... Partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Venable where he leads the firm's autonomous and connected mobility group, Ariel S. Wolf... Manager of global sales operations at Sygnia, Avital Mannis Eyal... Retired NFL quarterback, he was the tenth overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, now an MBA candidate at Wharton, Josh Rosen turns 28... Israeli singer, songwriter and dancer, Jonathan Ya'akov Mergui turns 25... | | | | | |
