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Good Thursday morning.  

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Shari Redstone about her mission to fight antisemitism after selling Paramount, and talk to diplomatic sources in Jerusalem about the Qatari and Egyptian officials poised to take over key roles at UNESCO. We highlight a letter by House Democrats warning Israel against unilaterally annexing territory in the West Bank or Gaza, and talk to a Syrian Jewish community leader about his opposition to leaving sanctions against Damascus on the table. We also report on a call by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers for President Donald Trump to “be very careful” in negotiations with Turkey today. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Maria Elvira Salazar and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

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By calling the United Nations “useless” and saying many countries were “going to hell” by pursuing liberal governance, President Donald Trump was his usual provocative, impolitic self in his Tuesday speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Where other nations and the U.N. itself have promoted a vision of greater global cooperation in an interconnected world, Trump doubled down on a call for national sovereignty and closed borders. Where nearly all U.N. member states have pledged to make tackling climate change a priority, Trump took issue with the very concept of sustainable energy.

“Immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” Trump said at the close of his address. “Countries that cherish freedom are fading fast because of their policies on these two subjects.” 

But it was Trump’s continued support of Israel, even in the face of growing hostility from European countries and other Western allies to the Jewish state, that stood out the most. Trump, in his General Assembly speech, blasted the European nations that this week formally recognized a Palestinian state.

“Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state,” he said. “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7th, even while they [Hamas] refuse to release the hostages or accept a ceasefire.” 

The U.S. also joined Israel in boycotting the two-state solution conference on Monday, which was hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, and was joined by several major nations, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

But even while Trump used his nearly hourlong address to place himself firmly on Israel’s side in its nearly two-year-long war with Hamas, reports indicate that he is privately advocating for restraint. During a meeting Tuesday with Arab and Muslim leaders where U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff proposed a 21-point plan to end the war in Gaza, Trump promised the world leaders in attendance that he would not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank, Politico and The Times of Israel reported.

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Shari Redstone, 71, has been busier than she had expected after selling Paramount, where she served as chair, to Skydance Media in a widely scrutinized merger this summer. The Jewish media mogul recently joined the Israeli entertainment studio Sipur as chair, and in leading the Redstone Family Foundation, she is involved in a range of projects fostering cultural ties between the Black and Jewish communities and combating the rise in antisemitism, among other initiatives. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Friday, Redstone explained how her current efforts underscore a renewed commitment to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, an event she cites as accelerating her decision to finally agree to offload Paramount in an $8 billion deal with Skydance, the Hollywood studio led by David Ellison.

Oct. 7 impact: “I was in Israel years and years ago. My kids studied there, and Israel was always important. But after Oct. 7, it was the first time I thought about what my life would be without Israel, and how in so many ways, we’ve taken for granted the existence of Israel and everything that they do, frankly, for peace in the Middle East. You know, to give Jews a place that they know they will always have a home, which has become even more important in the past several months. It took on a new energy for me, and a new desire to really be supportive of Israel in every way I can,” Redstone told JI. 

Read the full interview here.

Israel is eyeing the upcoming United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization executive board meeting with concern, with Egypt and Qatar poised to take influential roles in the body. Qatar is set to take the body’s chairmanship, and former Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enani is considered a leading candidate for the organization's director general. The UNESCO Executive Board Meeting will begin on Wednesday in Paris and continue for two weeks, during which the new board chairperson and director general will be selected. The director general must receive a majority vote on Oct. 6, while the executive board chairmanship rotates between geographic blocs and the Middle East bloc agreed to put Qatar in the role, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Israel angle: With two Arab countries expected to assume UNESCO’s leading positions, some observers have expressed concern that Israel may again face disproportionate scrutiny and criticism — a pattern seen in other U.N. bodies where geopolitical tensions often surface. The potential new leadership of UNESCO is “bad for Israel and bad for America,” an Israeli diplomat told JI this week. Another Israeli diplomatic source said that it is an "unusual combination to have a director general and chairman of the executive board from Arab countries. It puts Israel at a disadvantage. … Israel is not a member of the executive board and has no influence on who will be chairman.”

Read the full story here.

Most House Democrats, including all of the current and former top Democratic leaders, signed onto a letter on Thursday to Israeli leaders warning them against unilaterally annexing territory in the West Bank or Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. At a time when Democrats are increasingly divided over the U.S.-Israel relationship and its direction, the letter highlights a strong degree of unanimity within the party against annexation, among both Democrats who largely remain supportive of Israel and those who have become more critical over the war in Gaza.

What they said: “As long-standing supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Israel’s security, and Israel’s future, we are deeply opposed to proposals for unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank,” the 178 lawmakers, led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said. “Such a move would not only violate international law but undermine decades of bipartisan U.S. policy and threaten the progress of the Abraham Accords, which offer Israel and its neighbors the opportunity to build a more secure, cooperative, and prosperous regional future. Unilateral annexation of the West Bank would plunge the region, already reeling from tens of thousands of deaths in the horrific Gaza war, into further chaos and violence.”

Read the full story here.

A debate is quietly simmering in Washington over the prospect of repealing congressionally mandated sanctions on Syria, an effort that has bipartisan support — but is not without its opponents, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. As part of the Senate’s consideration of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a provision is moving forward to fully repeal the Caesar Act, which placed strong sanctions on the Assad government in response to human rights violations. But other lawmakers are attempting to place conditions on the repeal of those authorities.

Community concerns: Some, like Rabbi Yosef Hamra, the nephew of the last chief rabbi of Syria, have argued that leaving the sanctions on the books in any capacity would cripple rebuilding efforts. But others say that the U.S. must maintain that tool as leverage to prevent future sectarian and human rights issues. Hamra, in a letter to congressional offices on behalf of the Jewish Heritage in Syria Foundation that was shared with JI, said, “Lifting the Caesar sanctions is essential to restore synagogues and cemeteries, safeguard irreplaceable Jewish heritage and re-establish a mutli-faith community in Syria after more than 30 years in exile. Simply put, this amendment would be devastating to the Jewish community in Syria.”

Read the full story here.

A bipartisan group of House members urged the administration to “be very careful” in negotiations with Turkey about its potential reentry into a program allowing it to acquire and potentially co-produce F-35 fighter jets, ahead of a White House meeting today between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Background: Trump said Friday that he would host Erdogan at the White House for trade and military talks, “including the large-scale purchase of Boeing aircraft, a major F-16 Deal, and a continuation of the F-35 talks, which we expect to conclude positively.” Lawmakers have been pressing for months for the administration to be cautious in allowing Turkey to acquire the advanced fighter jets, something it has been banned by law from doing since it purchased a Russian S-400 missile defense system. By law, Turkey must dispense with that system before it can be readmitted into the F-35 program, but some lawmakers have pushed for additional conditions, given various conflicts with Turkey, including its hostile posture toward Israel.

Read the full story here.

A bipartisan group of 18 House members is urging the State Department to pressure Colombia’s government to change course on what the lawmakers describe as a dangerous pattern of antisemitic rhetoric and policies by government officials, including the country’s president, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Call to action: “As U.S.-Colombia relations continue to be strained by numerous issues, including the increasingly troubling antisemitic rhetoric and discriminatory policies from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which are directly threatening the safety and well-being of Colombia's Jewish community, we write to urge the administration to consider even stronger actions, including leveraging U.S. assistance to push for meaningful change in President Petro and his government,” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), said in a letter sent on Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Read the full story here.

Pompeo’s Point: In The Free Press, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticizes recent moves by European nations, as well as the U.K., Australia and Canada, to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. “The move to recognize a Palestinian state where none exists did not just reward terror groups. It was also a boon to a faltering regime in Tehran desperate to repair its standing among Iranians after its decisive defeat in June’s 12-Day War. Any leader who genuinely desires peace should instead seize the historic opportunity to continue to diminish the Iranian regime and empower the forces across the region that seek a constructive relationship with Israel. History shows that peace has never been secured through appeasement—a lesson one would have thought our European and Anglosphere allies would keenly appreciate. Israel does not have the luxury of forgetting that lesson, and so they will continue to hold the line against barbarism, even if their supposed friends in the West will not.” [FreePress]

Awkward Alliance: The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis details how the rapid demise of the far-left Your Party — born from tensions between its “Gaza left” and “gender left” wings — illustrates the deeper challenges facing the left in Britain and beyond. “... the alliance of ‘rainbow and crescent’—as the historian James Orr, a friend of J. D. Vance, has described it—is extremely fragile. Gay marriage, abortion, and transgender rights are obvious flash points, but other issues can be equally divisive. For instance, many British Muslims support fee-paying schools, which can offer students a more religious curriculum than government-run institutions. The traditional left-wing position, however, is that private schools are engines of privilege and should be abolished. Can these groups happily coexist in a left-wing movement in the long term? The experience of Your Party suggests not.” [TheAtlantic]

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