Daily Kickoff
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2026
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on New York City Comptroller Mark Levine’s follow-up comments over the Israel bonds controversy and cover Brett McGurk’s comments at an Atlantic Council event last night, where he pushed back on arguments from some Biden administration colleagues that former President Joe Biden should have applied more pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza. We report on an unannounced meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, and cover comments by former President Barack Obama in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he said Israel’s founding had unjustly taken land from Palestinians. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Jessica Tisch, Assaf Rappaport and Tal Naim.
Curated by Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
The Weekly Print
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition — a curated PDF of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: › For some Jewish Democrats, Michigan’s debate was the ‘final straw’ for El-Sayed› How Israel’s parties say they would rebuild support in America › and Artist, philanthropist Barbara Hines, who discovered Jewish roots late in life, opens first Israeli show.
Today's Agenda
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is joining Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed for rallies today at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, along with a “Latinos for Abdul” event in Detroit, after they launched their joint bus tour across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula yesterday. The trip marks Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign appearance for El-Sayed during the general election.
Jewish groups including the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Westchester Jewish Democrats will hold a door-knocking and canvassing event on Sunday for Cait Conley, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 17th Congressional District, as she seeks to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).
One Thing to Know
A day after New York City Comptroller Mark Levine sparked criticism by backing off a campaign promise to reinvest the city’s pension dollars in State of Israel bonds, mainstream Jewish groups rallied around the historically pro-Israel Democrat — though sources said they expect a change in his investment policy in the months ahead.
Levine, who ran on a vow to reverse his predecessor Brad Lander’s termination of the city’s half-century of investment in Israeli bonds, posted an extended statement to X on Thursday affirming his personal support for Israel and the city’s long-standing economic ties to the Jewish state. He noted that some $285 million in city pension funds, most of them outside of his direct management, remain invested in Israeli equities and firms.
Levine’s initial comments, made on Wednesday to The New York Times, about his decision not to reinvest in Israeli government securities emphasized regional and political instability as the basis for his decision. By contrast, his social media post stressed another reason — during his tenure, Lander had instituted policies over the pot of funds the comptroller directly controls to bar their investment in multiyear bonds of the sort Israel makes available to New York City to buy.
The Big Reads
DAYLIGHT DEBATE
Brett McGurk pushes back on former Biden WH colleagues who called for greater pressure on Israel
Brett McGurk, a veteran national security official who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, pushed back on Thursday against arguments from his Biden administration colleagues that former President Joe Biden should have applied more pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of the hostages sooner, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Phillip Gordon, who served as national security advisor to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, argued that pressure on Jerusalem had worked and that “most” White House staff believed Biden should have taken an even tougher line against Israel. McGurk said at an Atlantic Council event about his book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, “If there was a shortcut, Joe Biden would have taken [it]. And if somebody could point to a key moment in which we would have been able to get a deal sooner, I'm open to that conversation. But I don't think there was."
MEETING MINUTES
Huckabee met secretly with Netanyahu’s top rival, Gadi Eisenkot
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met quietly in recent days with Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot amid the final stretch of Israel’s high-stakes election campaign, Gili Cohen reports for Jewish Insider, the first known time U.S. officials have met with the former IDF chief of staff as a prime ministerial candidate, considered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival in the contentious race. The meeting, according to a source familiar with the matter, focused on critical security concerns, including Gaza, West Bank escalation and rising settler violence. According to another source, the meeting went beyond formal diplomatic courtesy and served as a reconnaissance move by Washington to gauge Eisenkot’s regional outlook.
Poll projection: A Times of Israel poll published Thursday found that Eisenkot’s Yashar party has opened up a significant lead over Netanyahu’s Likud, though neither bloc is projected to win a 61-seat majority.
PRESIDENTIAL POV
Obama scrutinizes Israel’s founding, says Palestinians want their ‘land back’
Former President Barack Obama criticized Israel’s security policy as having “ceded moral ground” and said that Israel’s founding had unjustly taken land from Palestinians in remarks in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. At the same time, the former president also emphasized that both Israelis and Palestinians have a responsibility to change their approach in order to move toward peace. “The fact is that the Jewish people for millennia were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of that. They understandably sought a refuge in a place where they had historic ties. That is undeniable,” Obama said, according to transcripts and recordings of his remarks. “What is also undeniable is that they took the land of people and they were expelled. And those people, understandably, said, ‘This is an injustice, and I want my land back.’”
On the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks: “You could not have designed something that was less likely to produce meaningful change. In fact, it created the opposite.”
The Rundown
The rest of today’s original stories from Jewish Insider — full stories, all published on the site.
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump, asked in a Newsmax interview if he trusts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responded, “I don’t trust anybody, honestly … in a world of politics, I don’t trust anybody.” Asked if he plans on being involved in Netanyahu’s reelection campaign, Trump said, “Well, they’d like me to be. Yeah, they’d like me to be. Look, I've had a very good relationship with him. We've had good success together"...
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch received a standing ovation on Thursday at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Manhattan, where she accepted the “Happy Warrior” award and joked about the Democratic Socialists of America’s calls for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fire her, while the mayor, seated one row below her on the dais, was met with scattered boos alongside cheers, The New York Times reports.
Also on the dais were Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), New York Attorney General Letitia James, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer....
Democratic Senate candidates far outraised their Republican opponents in the third quarter across the most competitive races, Axios reports. James Talarico brought in $64 million in Texas to Ken Paxton’s $18 million, Abdul El-Sayed raised $30.7 million in Michigan to Mike Rogers’ $9.7 million, Troy Jackson pulled in $20.4 million in Maine to Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) $5.2 million and Kansas pastor Adam Hamilton raised $11 million to Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) $800,000…
Politico talks to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) about why she hasn’t campaigned alongside El-Sayed since endorsing him. “There’s changing dynamics, and there’s a new coalition that Abdul has built, and some people are a die-hard part of it, and some people are not. We’re seeing some constituent community pain coming out,” Stevens said…
The U.N. Security Council issued a statement on Thursday condemning the “escalatory” Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and affirming the Gulf kingdom’s “inherent right to self-defence in accordance with international law”…
The Treasury Department issued further sanctions against Iran’s financial networks on Thursday including against an Iraqi bank, Iranian offshore banks, exchange houses and financiers accused of helping Tehran access U.S. dollars and evade sanctions…
The Financial Times reports that the Trump administration is exploring options to ease restrictions on “shadow fleet” tankers linked to Russia and Iran in an attempt to lower fuel costs ahead of the midterm elections…
CNN reports that the U.S. military has drawn up potential strike plans for Iran that could include using the GBU-43/B “mother of all bombs” against energy infrastructure and nuclear sites if Trump orders renewed combat operations…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Thursday with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun following Beirut’s seizure of a shipment of explosives destined for Hezbollah, which Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said were intended for use against Israeli forces…
The 10-year-old son of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wrote to his father that he wanted to “hold the Kalashnikov and shoot the Jews” when he grows up, accompanied by drawings of tanks, rifles and rockets, according to letters recovered by the IDF in Gaza and provided by the military to The Telegraph…
Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that he spoke with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa last year after Israel bombed the Syrian Defense Ministry due to government forces targeting the Syrian Druze population…
Police arrested a teenager who had allegedly planned to carry out a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago last weekend, officials said at a press conference on Thursday. Investigators found at the suspect’s home a rifle, loaded magazines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and tactical gear, as well as items with Nazi symbols…
A Nazi-looted painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, which was returned to its heirs in 2023, sold for almost $42 million at an auction in London on Wednesday…
A Hamburg court sentenced two men to prison for plotting, on Iranian intelligence orders, to kill Jewish leaders in Germany including Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and pro-Israel German politician Volker Beck…
The Jerusalem News Syndicate reports Paraguay announced that it will pursue full membership in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and adopt its working definition of antisemitism…
Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport is poised to buy McDonald’s Israel franchise’s 230 branches for roughly 1 billion shekels ($320 million)...
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The 61-Seat Problem: Suleiman Maswadeh, senior correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13, lays out in The Atlantic the math problem facing both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition ahead of the Oct. 27 election, with polls showing both blocs falling short of a 61-seat majority. “Most polls give the ‘change camp’ — shorthand for the anti-Netanyahu bloc, which stretches from the left to the nationalist right — no path to 61 without either the Haredi or the Arab parties. Its leaders face a choice: break a promise or risk failing to form a government, which would send Israel to yet another election. … Every major poll except those on Channel 14, the network that functions as Netanyahu’s house broadcaster, shows that his bloc cannot form a coalition either. … Netanyahu’s best scenario, Israeli analysts say, is a stalemate: No bloc reaches 61, and the country goes to another election. Netanyahu would then remain at the head of a caretaker government, in power without a new mandate.” [TheAtlantic]
Demand Better: In Newsweek, Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and Joel Rubin, a former Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of state, lament that Jewish voters are being asked by both parties to overlook antisemitism from their own candidates, in the name of a greater electoral good. “Jewish voters are being told repeatedly in this election cycle to forgive and forget offensive comments and dangerous worldviews because the stakes are too high to do otherwise. As each party warns of an existential threat to the country if the other side wins, the common message to Jews is that we need to just keep our mouths closed and fall in line. We reject that deal. We reject the idea that hate speech should have a home in our political discourse. We reject the notion that acquiescing to discrimination is simply the price of admission to our political system. We reject the principle that ‘anything goes’ in pursuit of control of Congress.” [Newsweek]
Picture of the Day
Tal Naim, spokesperson of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, cast her ballot on Thursday after early voting opened at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world ahead of the Oct. 27 elections. Tal Naim/X
Birthdays
Marc Levy, best-selling French novelist, one of whose books was made into DreamWorks’ “Just Like Heaven,” turns 65 on Friday.
Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/ AFP via Getty Images
friday
Shimon Mizrahi, Israeli attorney, chairman of Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball, turns 87
Alfred Altschul, retired CFO of Amtrak, Midway Airlines and Airlines Reporting Corporation, turns 87
Morton A. Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), turns 79
David Zucker, film director, producer, screenwriter and creator of “The Naked Gun” franchise, turns 79
Andrew S. Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College and author of 28 books, turns 79
Marvin C. Feuer, vice president for strategy at AIPAC
Elinor Lipman, novelist, short story writer and essayist, turns 76
Shmuel Slavin, chairman of Sela Capital Real Estate Ltd., he previously served as the director-general of Israel's Ministry of Finance, turns 73
Jeff Narod, executive director of Clark University Hillel
David Linsky, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 1999, turns 69
Daniel Benjamin, president of the American Academy in Berlin, he was the coordinator for counterterrorism during the Obama administration, turns 65
Howard David Krein, otolaryngologist who also specializes in facial and reconstructive surgery, turns 60
Scott Tobin, senior advisor at Battery Ventures’ Israel office
Adam Fetterman, attorney in North Palm Beach, Fla., he served in the Florida House of Representatives, turns 56
Gil Kenan, filmmaker, best known for directing “Monster House” and “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” turns 50
Kala Savage, actor best known for her television roles in “Undressed,” “Santa Barbara” and “8 Simple Rules,” turns 48
Sue Bird, retired basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association, she has five Olympic gold medals, turns 46
Brandon Jared Perlman, founder and CEO at Social Studies, Inc., he is also the founder of The Gramlist
Boyd Melson, three-time U.S. Army light-middleweight boxing champion, he boxed with a Star of David on his trunks, turns 45
Jason Langsner, VP of data at The Atlantic
Margalit Rosenthal, West Coast regional director at Foundation for Jewish Camp
Avi Fink, SVP for financial planning and analysis at Vibrant Emotional Health
Devora Kaye, senior director of communications at Mark43
Sam Ginsberg, business analyst at LWF Group and project manager at Aqualinq
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