Daily Kickoff: AIPAC’s primary winning streak (2024)

Good Wednesday morning.

In today’sDaily Kickoffwe preview today’s election inSouth Africa, and have the scoop on a letter by Sens.Jacky RosenandJames Lankfordurging the education secretary to appoint an official to oversee campus antisemitism investigations. We also press Sen.Raphael Warnock, a trustee at Union Theological Seminary, for his stance on the school’s board of trustees voting to divest from Israel. Also in today’sDaily Kickoff:William Kolbrener,Jerry SeinfeldandTony Gonzales.

AIPAC’s super PAC began its spending blitzagainst one of its top targets— Squad-aligned Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who is facing a serious primary challenge from St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell.

The United Democracy Project super PACplaced its first ad buy against Bushon Tuesday, which is expected to be the start of an ongoing campaign before the Aug. 6 primary.

So far this cycle, AIPAC’s super PAC has been effective in winningmost of the competitive races it has engaged in. It propelled Maryland state legislator Sarah Elfreth to a comfortable victory in an expensive Democratic primary, stopped anti-Israel former GOP Rep. John Hostettler from prevailing in Indiana andclaimed creditfor rallying pro-Israel donors behind a center-left Oregon Democrat (Maxine Dexter) running against the sister of progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

And in Texas’ high-stakes GOP runoff last night, AIPAC’s effortsto boost center-right Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) played a critical role, as the congressmannarrowly defeatedBrandon Herrera, a right-wing challenger with ahistory of antisemitic rhetoric. Texas Republicans also nominated state Rep. Craig Goldman to an open House seat; he’s set to become the third Jewish Republican in next year’s Congress.

AIPAC’s lone setback so far has been in California, where state Sen. Dave Min emerged as the Democratic nominee despite facing a barrage of ads against him from UDP. (Min still faces a competitive general election in a battleground district.)

Its biggest targets, however, are two of the most virulently anti-Israel voices in Congress: Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Bush. UDPhas already spent about $8 millionagainst Bowman in the run-up to his June 25 primary, and the early ad reservation against Bush demonstrates they believe Bell can defeat the controversial incumbent.

Ultimately, AIPAC’s political scorecard(and that of other like-minded pro-Israel groups) will hinge on whether they can oust those two lawmakers. Defeating an incumbent in a primary is historically rare, but pro-Israel groups like AIPAC are betting that this summer will serve as proof that radical views on Israel (and beyond) won’t sell, even in Democratic primaries in deep-blue districts.

Spotted in Israel this week:Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who visited several of the sites where the Oct. 7 attack took place,including the Nova festivalandKibbutz Nir Oz. She headed to the Lebanon border on Tuesday, where shewrote a messageon an artillery shell to be shot at Hezbollah targets: “Finish them! America ❤ Israel. Always, Nikki Haley.”

In aninterview withIsrael Hayom— the right-leaning newspaper owned by Miriam Adelson, whoseprivate jetHaley took to Israel — the former ambassador criticized the Biden administration for stopping some weapons shipments to Israel.

“You can’t hold back weapons from an ally,”Haley said. “So if we want to be a friend to Israel, the best thing America can do is let Israel do its job and just support [it].”

Haley added:“If the Palestinians want a better life, they need to get rid of Hamas. They need to change leadership; they need to understand that they are in this situation because of the leaders around them. This is not Israel’s job to save the Palestinians, the Palestinians should want to save themselves by getting rid of the terrorists who are trying to control them who are using them as human shields.”

Haley called on Israel to“tune out the noise and finish the job… Don’t let anybody make you feel wrong, because Israel is not wrong in this.”

As Israel faces global scrutiny following an attack in Rafah that killed dozens of civilians, the White House on Tuesday pledged to stand by Israel in its war against Hamas and made clear that the incident will not shift U.S. policy on arming Israel,Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

No change:“I have no policy changes to speak to,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at a press briefing. “The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation, and we’ll see where it goes from there.” Nothing the White House has seen yet has prompted the U.S. to consider withholding more military assistance to Israel, Kirby said.

Deep sorrow:Israeli military officialssaidthat a warehouse of hidden weapons may have been the culprit behind the fire that killed Palestinian civilians on Sunday, noting that the munitions Israel used in its airstrike — which the IDF said killed two senior Hamas terrorists —were small and targeted. The Israeli strike set off a blaze that spread to a complex where Palestinians were taking shelter. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimated 45 people were killed. The IDF spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari,expressed“deep sorrow for this tragic loss of life” and pledged a comprehensive investigation.

Harris response:Earlier on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris weighed in on the Rafah incident. “The word ‘tragic’ doesn’t even begin to describe it,” she said. Harris dodged a question about whether it crossed the Biden administration’s “red line” on Rafah.

Never forget:Kirby, pressed by reporters on whether the U.S. will alter its support for Israel, asserted that Washington is giving Israel “the kinds of capabilities they need to defend themselves.” Viewed as one of the more stalwartly pro-Israel voices in the administration, Kirby delivered a terse response about the threats Israel still faces. “Maybe some people have forgotten what happened on the seventh of October, but we haven’t. Twelve hundred Israelis, innocent Israelis slaughtered, mutilated, raped, tortured, and they’re living right next to that kind of threat, still a viable threat in Rafah,” said Kirby. “Israel has every right to not want to live next to that kind of threat. And yes, we’re going to continue to provide them the capabilities to go after it.”

Read the full story here.

Pushing on:Israeli tanksadvancedfurther into Rafah yesterday, as Israel said it was expanding its operation in the Gazan city.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) agreed with a popular far-left Twitch streamer last week that the Abraham Accords, and other U.S. policies, were significantly responsible for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel,Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

10,000%:The political streamer,Hasan Piker,said the attackwas, “a direct consequence of the Abraham Accords and many of Jared Kushner’s and Donald Trump’s administration’s actions, like moving the embassy to Jerusalem.” Ocasio-Cortez, appearing on Piker’s show, responded, “10,000%.”

Nodding along:“He is just as responsible for Oct. 7 as anyone else… it directly happened as a direct consequence of him moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the annexed territory of Golan Heights as Israeli territory, going against international law and also conducting the Abraham Accords, completely sidestepping the Palestinians in the conversation. That is a major reason,” he continued, as Ocasio-Cortez continued to nod along and said, “mhm.”

Background:Piker also hosted on his show a Yemeni influencer whofilmed himself onboard a civilian commercial shipseized by the Houthis. On that stream, Pikercompared the Yemeni terrorist groupfavorably to the pirate hero of a Japanese cartoon series. Piker has been outspoken against Israel since Oct. 7, including offering or defending arguments that the Oct. 7 attack wasinevitableand potentiallyunderstandable and justifiable, while often stopping short of directly endorsing the attack.

Read the full story here.

South Africa is holding what is set to be a historic election todaybut even as analysts are anticipating a landmark outcome, the results are unlikely to change Pretoria’s anti-Israel posture. The African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela that has long dominated South African politics, is expected to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since it played the pivotal role in bringing down apartheid in 1994. This would require the ANC to form a coalition in order to stay in power, since it is still leading the next-largest party, the opposition Democratic Alliance, by about 20 points, according to polls,Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Potential partners:Whether the ANC’s potential shift to a coalition government would change Pretoria’s position towards Jerusalem depends on its coalition partners and whether the ANC would relinquish the Foreign Ministry. Asked whether the makeup of a possible coalition could dilute the intensity of the ANC’s fixation on Israel, South African political commentator and radio host Howard Feldman told JI that “there are basically two parties that are anti-Israel and the others basically don’t care.” The “nightmare scenario,” Feldman said, would be for the ANC to work with the Economic Freedom Fighters – internationally infamous for singing asong calling to kill white peopleat their rallies – but that “seems unlikely because [the ANC] is quite threatened by them.”

Another option:A more likely party to join the coalition is the conservative Inkatha Freedom Party, which Feldman said “would be good in terms of Israel.” Feldman thought there was a fair chance that the Democratic Alliance, which is popular with South Africa’s roughly 50,000 Jews, would join a coalition with the ANC, “and hopefully things would run better and they would focus the ANC on the country and not on its Israel obsession.”

Radical route:Former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk, however, predicted that the most likely scenario was that the ANC would team up with more radical parties. Feldman said he thought “it will be psychologically hard for the ANC to wake up and not have the majority. They run the country with complete arrogance. Every law they wanted could be passed in parliament.”

Read the full story here.

Responding to the deluge of new investigations into antisemitism on college campuses since Oct. 7, Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) wrote to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Monday to call on him to appoint a dedicated official to oversee the Department of Education’s efforts to fight antisemitism,Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Funding threat:The lawmakers also said that the department must hold schools “accountable using every available tool, up to and including withholding federal funding” when they fail to protect Jewish students as “too many” have.

More to do:“Far more work needs to be done to hold schools accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on college campuses, including by swiftly resolving pending investigations

New job:Rosen and Lankford said Cardona should “designate a senior official with the responsibility of overseeing the Department’s efforts to counter antisemitic discrimination in higher education,” in consultation with the Senate and House antisemitism task forces. Rosen and Lankford lead the Senate task force.

Read the full story here.

It was the cans of tuna that author Gila Green hoarded in her safe room that finally unlocked her case of writer’s block after the trauma of Oct. 7. Green took part in a workshop earlier this month that is part of “Writing on the Wall,” an online community aimed at producing art that reflects the complexities of Jewish and Israeli life at this time. The workshop, led by Bar-Ilan University English professor William Kolbrener and novelist and Ph.D. student Ronit Eitan, was titled “Haven’t the Jewish People Suffered Enough” — how humor “transforms tragedy into laughter,”Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. Humor, Kolbrener told attendees, “is a long Jewish tradition. That’s how Jews deal with tragedy.”

First step:After Oct. 7, Kolbrener, who was academic director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, recounted that the idea of publishing another paper on antisemitism did not feel sufficient to him: “I thought, ‘the house is burning down.’” Kolbrener, who has taught English literature and creative writing at Bar-Ilan University for nearly 30 years, led “an impromptu writing workshop” on Oct. 17, for students who would not be able to return to classes for over two months.

‘Horror into art’:“Writers were on fire,” Kolbrenerlater wroteabout that workshop. “Their stories: a grad student home with four young children, her husband ‘somewhere’ in Gaza; a writer, her son-in-law, identifying the still burning bodies of Kibbutz Beeri; the undergrad who stayed home from the [Nova] rave, but whose friend did not. But they found words, and images – to transmute the horror into art.” Kolbrener and Eitan were then inspired to start Writing on the Wall, which has held a series of workshops and publishes essays, poems and visual art on itswebsite.

Read the full story here.

Rashida’s Rant:New Yorkmagazine’s Jonathan Chaitwritesabout Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) appearance at a radical anti-Israel conference last weekend: “Many progressives are already pleading with the anti-Israel left to reconsider its determination to punish Biden, whose campaign it has spent months attempting to disrupt or target with harassment. And some protesters surely do hope merely to move Biden as far left as possible and will climb down eventually. But the position Tlaib revealed this weekend does have a real logic to it that suggests she may not merely be bluffing…Her speech this weekend confirmed the militant thrust of her position. It contained not even a word of condemnation of terrorism, any mention of the hostages, or acknowledgment that Jewish Israelis possess any rights to live under any future settlement. She treated criticism of antisemitic rhetoric at the protests — the extent of which can be debated, but the existence of which cannot — as nothing more than a smear.”[NYMag]

Israeli Standards:Bloomberg’s columnist Marc Championmakes the casethat while Israel is frequently held to a different standard than other countries, the International Court of Justice arrest warrants, campus protests and genocide accusations were not inevitable. “These were the direct results of the Netanyahu government’s policies, pushed into hyperdrive since he scraped back into power with the help of ultra-right parties in December 2022. Double standards should not be Israel’s big concern here. The question for Israelis should be how they want to be led, how they retrieve the remaining hostages in Gaza alive, and how they win the war. That victory won’t come the day Hamas commander Yahya Sinwar is killed in a Rafah tunnel, but when Israelis can live in security, which will depend on addressing the Palestinian despair Hamas feeds on. This is the goal by which Israelis should judge their own leaders, as well as the claims of outsiders.”[Bloomberg]

War Worries:InThe New York Times, Bret Stephenscontemplateshow the U.S. handles existential wars, such as the ones in Israel and Ukraine. “Right now, the Biden administration is trying to restrain Israel and aid Ukraine while operating under both illusions. It is asking them to fight their wars in roughly the same way that the United States has fought its own wars in recent decades — with limited means, a limited stomach for what it takes to win and an eye on the possibility of a negotiated settlement. How is it possible, for instance, that even now Ukraine does not have F-16s to defend its own skies? In the short run, the Biden approach may help relieve humanitarian distress, allay angry constituencies or eliminate the possibility of sharp escalations. In the long run, it’s a recipe for compelling our allies to lose. A ‘peace deal’ with Moscow that leaves it in possession of vast areas of Ukrainian territory is an invitation for a third invasion once Russia recapitalizes its forces. A cease-fire with Hamas that leaves the group in control of Gaza means it will inevitably start another war, just as it has five times before. It also vindicates the strategy of using civilian populations as human shields — something Hezbollah will be sure to copy in its next full-scale war with Israel.”[NYT]

Right Turn:TheFinancial Times’ Guy Chazanexploresthe growing popularity of far-right parties in Europe. “Experts say far-right parties, such as Vox in Spain, portray themselves as insurgents against the system, a tactic that goes down particularly well with young men. Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader, rails against Spain’s ‘progressive dictatorship’, vowing to repeal laws on transgender rights and abortion and end the country’s ‘climate fanaticism’.’It’s about rebellion, transgression, provocation,’ says Steven Forti, professor of contemporary history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. ‘They say they’re fighting the cultural hegemony of left liberals, and there are a lot of young people who buy into this narrative. Especially young men, many of whom feel emasculated by feminism.’ This mood was encapsulated in a video circulating on German social media last week showing a group of well-heeled young men and women at a party on Sylt, a popular holiday island for the rich, singing ‘foreigners out’ and ‘Germany for the Germans’. One of the young men in the crowd performs the banned Hitler salute.”[FT]

Rafah Blaze Probe:IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagarisaid on Tuesdaythat the military is investigating the possibility that the blaze that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians was a secondary explosion initiated by a cache of Hamas’ weapons.

Saudi Statement:Saudi Arabia’s Foreign MinistrycondemnedIsrael’s military operations in Rafah “in the strongest terms” in a statement released today.

Pier Pressure:The U.S.’ $320 million floating pier designed to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza hasbrokenapart and needs “rebuilding and repairing,” according to the Pentagon.

Hostage Video:Palestinian Islamic Jihadreleased a hostage videoon Tuesday of an Israeli Amazon employee who was kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

Harvard to Go Silent:Harvard Universityannouncedon Tuesday that the school will refrain from taking official positions on controversial public policy issues.

Family Matters:Rachel Gelman, the daughter of former Israel Policy Forum Chair Susie Gelman, has been one of the leading funders of anti-Israel activist groups involved in campus demonstrations,according to a report in theDaily Beast.

Bring Back Better:President Joe Bidenwill unveilhis campaign’s strategy to regain ground among Black voters during a campaign stop in Philadelphia today. He will be appearing alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.

Left Behind:The New York Democratic Socialists of Americaendorsed Rep. Jamaal Bowman(D-NY), citing his anti-Israel record as the reason for their backing. The DSA had previously broken with Bowman over his travel to Israel with J Street and his vote for Iron Dome funding in 2021.

Marco! Rubio!The New York Timesspotlightsthe strategy of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) of staying out of the limelight as he strives to become Donald Trump’s vice president.

McCarthy’s Revenge:Former President Donald Trumpendorsed state Sen. John McGuire’s primary challengeto hard-right Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

Rand’s New Bro:Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)hasn’t yet endorsedTrump, in part because of a budding friendship with third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Pressure Tactics:Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen was allegedlyinvolvedin an effort to pressure then International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to derail a war crimes probe against Israel, according to aGuardianinvestigation.

Brushback:New York State Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat,saidyesterday that she won’t introduce legislation needed by Mets owner Steve Cohen in order to advance his plan to build an $8 billion casino and entertainment complex next to Citi Field.

Two-State Plan:Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmypresenteda three-phase plan for a two-state solution after Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mexico Mayhem:Six police officers wereinjuredin clashes with dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in Mexico City last night.

Kat-zy Diplomacy:TheFinancial TimesspotlightsIsraeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s aggressive diplomacy tactics, often taking the form of lampoonish social media posts hitting Israel’s critics.

Labor Leader:Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief,wonthe Labor primary election yesterday to replace Merav Michaeli as the head of the party.

Jerry’s Jabs:Jerry Seinfeldsat down with Bari Weissto discuss his trip to Israel after Oct. 7, and being the target of antisemitic protesters at his recent comedy shows.

Dig This!:A 2,300-year-old gold ring wasfoundin the City of David, Jerusalem, in a joint excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, the former announced this week.

Architect Jost Haberland (left) with Aron Schuster, director of the Central Welfare Office of Jews in Germany (ZWST), who holds the symbolic key for the Potsdam Synagogue Center in his hands. The ceremony yesterday marked the completion of construction of the synagogue, which began in August 2021 and cost about 16.5 million euros.

Birthweek: Incoming rabbi of Boston’s South Shore Congregation Sha’aray Shalom,Rabbi Eric M. Berkturned 47 on Tuesday…