Days after President Joe Biden delivered a White House address condemning violence at campus protests, the Young Democrats of America issued a sharply worded denunciation of Biden and asserted its support for the protesters. One source familiar with the group’s plans said the Young Democrats’ 12-member executive board passed the statement with a slim majority. The statement from Young Democrats, an organization that claims a membership of 20,000 Democrats under the age of 36, warned Biden that his stance on the Israel-Hamas war and his criticism of the protests risk the support of a key dem ..read more

Two prominent Christian conservative leaders pushed back publicly on Friday against a growing narrative on the right that the House-passed Antisemitism Awareness Act contradicts Christian scripture or would limit freedom of speech. The bill, which codifies the Department of Education’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in evaluating accusations of unlawful antisemitic harassment and discrimination on campuses, passed the House with strong bipartisan support but conservative outrage has been building in the subsequent days. In partic ..read more

Several mainstream Jewish groups pulled out of a meeting on Friday with high-level Biden administration officials about campus antisemitism after learning that the Department of Education had also included a number of left-wing groups not usually included in White House convenings, including one organization that is closely aligned with the far-left Jewish activist group IfNotNow. The meeting with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden was requested by Jewish advocacy groups that had previously met with Cardona in October, shortly after the Oc ..read more

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) has been trying to ingratiate himself with President Joe Biden even as his left-wing, anti-Israel record in Congress has alienated moderate Democratic voters to the point where he could lose a hotly contested primary against Westchester County Executive George Latimer next month. But in a sign of the Squad-aligned lawmaker’s ideological commitments undermining his political prospects, his support of the anti-Israel campus protesters has underscored how far his views are from Biden’s. In the same week that Bowman defended Columbia University protesters taking over an ..read more

Good Friday morning. In today’sDaily Kickoff, we take a deep dive into the internal politics roilingCollege Democrats of Americaas it takes a position in support of campus anti-Israel protests, and report on efforts byEuropean nationsto unilaterally recognize aPalestinian state. Also in today’sDaily Kickoff:April Delaney, Sen.Bill CassidyandHannah Einbinder. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House this afternoon. A new lawsuit filed by victims and survivors of the Oct. 7 attack seeks to p ..read more

The fate of the House-passed Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) in the Senate remains unclear after a bipartisan effort to unanimously fast-track passage of the bill encountered objections on both sides of the aisle. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters on Thursday, “There are objections on both sides, so were going to look for the best way to move forward.” He was unable to offer a timeline on when he would announce next steps. One senior GOP senator who serves on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) leadership team, speaking on condition of anonymity, told J ..read more

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans penned a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Thursday to request that he hold a hearing on how the uptick in antisemitism on college campuses is violating the civil rights of Jewish students. The letter was led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the top Republican on the committee, and signed by every Republican who serves on the panel, including Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). They urged Durbin, who chairs the comm ..read more

As anti-Israel encampments on college campuses sprung up at dozens of universities last week, the national leadership of the College Democrats of America (CDA) asked the group’s Jewish and Muslim caucuses to draft a statement condemning the antisemitism that was quickly appearing among some protesters. The byzantine process that followed would lead the College Democrats’ top Jewish leader to accuse the influential organization of ignoring antisemitism at campus protests to further a one-sided, anti-Israel agenda, after the organization’s leadership nixed the inclusive statement that had been ..read more

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are raising concerns about the possibility of International Criminal Court arrest warrants targeting Israeli officials over the war in Gaza, with some floating retaliatory measures including possible sanctions. Ive been very skeptical of the ICC, Im still skeptical, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) told Jewish Insider. But heres the thing, if they do this, I guarantee you that will be the end of any American support for the ICC ever, and thats not a threat.” “Now theyre [the ICC] going to prosecute them [the Israelis]?,” Sullivan continued. “Remember, there was ..read more

Israel is pushing back as the United Nations as well as several countries in Europe and beyond are expected to recognize a Palestinian state in the coming weeks. After months of debate among U.N. member states, individual countries and parliaments over whether to recognize an independent Palestinian state, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said this week that five European states could do so by the end of May. In addition, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on Palestinian membership on May 10, following a U.S. veto in the Security Council last month. Israeli Ambassador to the ..read more