Tuesday, November 03, 2026
Walter Russell Mead: Why the Middle East Is Hard to Quit
Every president since George W. Bush has come into the White House hoping to limit America's risks and costs in the Middle East. The longing for an exit is understandable. Over the last generation, the burden of America's commitments in the region has grown, yet our need for Middle Eastern oil has diminished.Robert Kennedy Jr.: In Defense of Israel
The shale revolution has turned the U.S. into an energy superpower, producing more oil than Saudi Arabia. The Western Hemisphere produces more oil than the Middle East, with increasing fossil-fuel production from Canada, Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil and Argentina. Given this, people ask why we spend billions, even trillions, to police a region whose oil resources we don't need.
Yet the Middle East still matters. The Western Hemisphere may have pumped 37.4% of the world's oil against 30.9% from the Middle East in 2025, but a price shock still reverberated around the world this year when Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Similar shocks hit the world's farmers as Middle East exports of urea and phosphate fertilizers fell.
If the forecasts of the U.S. Energy Information Administration prove accurate, projected increases in Western Hemisphere production of fossil fuels won't be enough to prevent price shocks from the Middle East. For the foreseeable future, American security and economic interests are going to keep us engaged, no matter how many presidents in both parties dream of walking away.
Instead of fantasizing about an escape from the Middle East, Americans need to think harder about how to safeguard our essential interests at the lowest possible risk and cost. We need to cut the burden of our commitments without sacrificing interests that still matter.
Facilitating smarter security cooperation between Israel and key Arab states will remain a crucial American objective, and Indian and American interests are broadly aligned in the Middle East. Besides securing energy supplies, India cares deeply about the millions of its citizens who work in the Persian Gulf.
Deepening defense and tech ties with Israel and shared concerns about terrorism commit India to promoting cooperation between Arabs and Israelis. And with Pakistan closely aligned with China, India's interests in countering Pakistani influence in the Middle East line up with American concerns about Beijing.
Media outlets piled on this week to express outrage at my observation about the troubling dearth of scientific output from the world's 22 Arab nations over the past five decades. However, the reporters omitted critical context, presumably to bestow plausibility on their accusations that my statements were racist and Islamophobic.Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s faith in the Democratic Party
However, my speech was not a critique of Arabs or Islam, but of Islamism (also known as "Political Islam"), a toxic ideology conceived and promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Islamism is a violent corruption of mainstream Islam that summons adherents back to the seventh-century ideal of bloody jihad.
Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar - the Muslim equivalent of the Vatican and the highest authority in Sunni Islamic thought - has rejected Islamism as "false Islam" and a "perversion of the Islamic religion" and accused it of "barbaric crimes."
Islamism is intensely anti-American, anti-Western, and hostile to modernity. It is explicitly contemptuous of democracy, constitutional government, capitalism, minority rights, gay rights, women's rights, free speech, and virtually all personal freedoms. Its central aspiration is for a global caliphate ruled by a single theocratic despot with absolute power to impose sharia law that dictates every aspect of human conduct.
I pointed out that the Muslim Brotherhood's antipathy for modernity is a dramatic departure from Islam's historical affinity for science and learning. During the 8th through 15th centuries as well as during the Ottoman Empire, Muslim leaders promoted a brilliant flowering of innovation and scholarship in science, mathematics, philosophy, art, literature, astronomy, pharmacology, psychology, engineering, architecture, medicine, and navigation that continues to enrich the world today.
Genocidal hatred against ALL Jews and Christians and other minorities is foundational to Islamism. In 1948, the world's 22 Arab nations were host to 750,000 Jews living in communities that predated Muhammad by 1,000 years. Today, there are virtually no Jews in those nations. In Nazi terminology, they are Judenrein: Jew-free. In 1948, Christian populations represented 20% of those nations; today they represent 4%. These are the real ongoing genocides of the Mideast.
Hers is a theory of coalition politics: reject the radical left’s ideas, fight them in primaries, keep moderates in control, and if one of their candidates wins the nomination, tolerate him rather than sacrifice a Democratic majority.
That tolerance is where many in the Jewish community are uncomfortable. They fear that tolerating such candidates gives cover to antisemites and to those who accuse Israel of genocide. Their concern is not that most Democrats share those views, but that ideas can move from unacceptable to tolerated to normalized long before they command a majority. A party does not have to embrace a fringe to be changed by it.
She said that being a Democrat is no more difficult for her today than it was two decades ago. Asked about pro-Israel colleagues who say the caucus feels lonely, she acknowledged that it can feel lonely, though she attributed much of it to reactions to the current Israeli government.
I respect Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and I admire her commitment. She is trying to defend her convictions while remaining inside a coalition under strain. It is not easy to be a pro-Israel Democrat right now, and she has not walked away from the party or the fight.
But I left our conversation unable to reconcile the line she draws with the compromise she accepts. She rejects the DSA and El-Sayed’s genocide accusation, and says she would never campaign for him. Yet when I raised Harris and Obama standing with him, her answer was about other priorities. Each position is defensible on its own. Together they expose the tension between the boundary she draws and what her party is increasingly willing to stand beside, or even endorse. Democratic Party arguing over Israel, socialism
That tension is what many American Jews see: a party arguing with itself over Israel and socialism. Representative Josh Gottheimer, also a Democrat, warned in The Free Press this August that the “socialist fringe is trying to hijack the Democratic Party,” and that for “a growing number of my colleagues, being anti-Israel has now become a nonnegotiable moral litmus test.” Both love the party. They are describing different parties.
Staying in the tent and fighting from inside is a legitimate choice, and it may prove right. But goodwill is not a boundary. A boundary matters only if crossing it has consequences. The real test comes after candidates who hold ideas she rejects win.
Her answer is that moderates will retain control and the fringe will not set the party’s agenda. That is the wager at the heart of her faith in the Democratic Party: that the party can tolerate the fringe without being changed by it.
Many American Jews hope she is right. But they are watching some of the Democratic Party’s most prominent leaders campaign for El-Sayed, who accuses Israel of genocide and appeared with the streamer she calls a “stone-cold antisemite.”
At what point does supporting such a candidate stop being merely a strategy for preserving a Democratic majority and begin to change what the party is willing to accept – and ultimately what it stands for? And for American Jews, how long can it remain their political home?
Trump: Netanyahu agreed to end $4 billion in US aid to Israel by end of 2026
Trump says ending Israel aid would remove Democrats' 'best talking point'What does Trump's earthquake announcement of ending aid to Israel mean?
Trump embraces the political argument: ‘The best talking point’ for the left
Toward the end of the interview, one of the hosts again returned to Israel, this time offering an interpretation of the political logic behind Trump’s announcement.
“Mr. President, just to put the button on this, because I think I understand your thinking on this, the left has used the Israel relationship, our great partnership. They’ve weaponized [it] against all our candidates, and you’re saying we’re still close with Israel, but we’re going to remove this talking point.”
Trump enthusiastically embraced that formulation.
“I want to say that it’s great, great word usage. Talking point, the best talking point that these lunatics have on the left.”
He argued that opponents of US assistance to Israel had used its annual cost to portray American foreign policy as unfair to domestic taxpayers.
“The left uses the $4 billion payment that everybody knows about, it’s no secret, as a signal of unfairness, and we can’t allow that to happen,” Trump said.
“I don’t like that because, you know, it’s too easy. It’s almost too easy a target.”
Trump then returned to Michigan, where El-Sayed is running against Republican Mike Rogers in one of the closely watched contests that could determine control of the Senate.
“When you see their rallies, when you see this lunatic that’s running in Michigan, he talks about the money that we pay them all the time,” Trump said.
“He says, ‘Why are we giving Israel $4 billion?’ You take that off the table. They don’t need it.”
The president then claimed that his approval rating in Israel stood at 99%, joking that he might move to Israel and become prime minister if Americans ever grew tired of him.
Israel can still buy American weapons, Trump says
Another crucial question remained: Would the alleged decision to end American assistance also mean stopping weapons sales to Israel?
The Fox hosts raised the issue directly. “Are you giving them the options to buy the weapons from us still?”
Trump answered without hesitation. “Oh yeah, they can buy whatever they want. They can buy whatever they want. So can Europe.”
He then praised the US defense industry, saying American manufacturers were building new production facilities for Tomahawk missiles, Patriot air-defense systems, THAAD interceptors, and other advanced military equipment.
According to Trump, companies including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon were expanding production capacity in response to his administration’s demands.
The distinction he drew is significant.
Trump was describing an end to the annual assistance package, not a termination of defense cooperation or a prohibition on Israeli purchases of American military equipment.
Whether that distinction can be implemented as presented, and how it would affect existing weapons procurement contracts, remains unclear.
So many bombshell events have happened since October 7, that many believe they will be insulated from shock at the unexpected event around the corner.
And yet, top officials from Israel's defense establishment, the Foreign Ministry, and the Finance Ministry all fell out of their seats on Tuesday when US President Donald Trump suddenly announced the unexpected end of decades of US military aid to Israel on live TV.
Israelis over the last year have gotten used to the idea that military aid would end at the end of 2028, which is the end of a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2018 under the Obama administration.
Some Israelis thought even that was a bad move to just accept without a fight, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had argued that Israel needed: 1) greater weapons independence and that 2) evolving politics in the US meant that an end to aid would likely happen whether Israel wanted it or not.
But there is around $8 billion that Israel's defense establishment was planning to use for a variety of items in the coming two years, from F-35 aircraft, to new F-15 aircraft, to helicopters, to defense interceptors, to a range of other weapons systems and joint weapons research projects.
Defense, Finance Ministries completed plans for NIS 15 billion
Only weeks ago, Israel's Defense and Finance Ministries ironed out a deal to disperse around NIS 15 billion, which the Knesset had already approved, but was holding onto out of concern that Israel is spending too much on defense.
In fairness, Israel's defense budget has jumped from the NIS 60 billion range to 80 to 100 to around NIS 143 billion in recent years due to the ongoing wars and escalating new threats on seven fronts.
Will the Finance Ministry suddenly need to ante up another $8 billion (NIS 24 billion or more) over the next two years to cover this shortfall?
Will Israel have to drop or delay purchasing key offensive or defensive weapons systems at a critical time when it is in an arms race with its enemies?
And the most stunning part of all of this was that Trump said ending the aid in 2026, as opposed to 2028, was all Netanyahu's idea.
Here, some Israeli officials are speculating (hoping) that Trump got excited and mixed up, and meant 2028, but just said 2026.
Israeli, US officials had meetings over MOUs regarding weapons sales
The Jerusalem Post has learned that Israeli and American officials have had a number of meetings and exchanges over signing a new 10- or 20-year MOU, which would be more of a joint partnership for future weapons sales and research, since May.
None of these officials had any inkling that the military aid might end two years early.
Also, Trump did not make this announcement of his own initiative, with advisers nearby shepherding him through.
Rather, he tossed it out in response to a question in an interview on Fox News.
So maybe Israelis feel out of their chairs, but shortly after, Netanyahu's staff and Trump's staff confirmed that he misspoke, and they just do not want to fix it on midterm election day, as the US, Israel, and Iran may be on the verge of another round of war.
All Israeli officials, who were shocked, referred questions to Netanyahu, who was uncharacteristically deafeningly silent at press time.
But it could also all be true.
People forget that U.S. military aid to Israel was our idea, not Israel’s. We basically offered it in exchange for Israel giving Egypt the Sinai back after 73. It gave us leverage over Israel, not the other way around.
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) November 3, 2026
And if you wanted know where the ideas of the “Clean break”report, especially the idea of the imperative of reducing and ending Israel’s dependence because it had reached economic and strategic maturity, manifested themselves, look no further than this speech. But Netanyahu had sways thought this at a scion of Jabotinsky and his father. It was deeply ingrained in the idea if Zionism itself. He did not need to be convinced by the “Clean Break” report in 1986. He was there already, but he needed a sign, a “Koshering” of sorts, to break taboos that governed, ossified, paralyzed and deteriorated the U.S. Jewish community leadership’s outlook. That sign had to come from Americans identified with hawkish support for Israel based on the American interest. That was the real impact of “Clean break.” It was always directed at the Israeli government and was never in concept or practice any sort of prescription for the American government. The idea that it was some blueprint for a U.S. war not only completely inverts what the document actually said, but is a deeply dishonest and interpretation of it. The document was written as and shaped as brotherly advice to the Israeli government from a crowd of Americans, who believed it is fundamentally in the American interest to prod Israel toward less dependence and greater strategic autonomy. The basic point was that israel must revert to pre-1967 imagery and assert itself as a powerful and proud strategic partner rather than continue to reduce itself and deepen the drift into becoming an ever greater strategic burden as the relentless din of imagery from Israel’s left-leaning strategic and defense community was at the time descending and advocating through these infernal peace process that eventually the historic record showed were sheer folly. Zionism after Oslo (really since 1970) had been deteriorating and reducing Israel to the diminished status of strategic beggar, which embodied the triumph of the Diaspora distortion of the Jewish soul even in israel rather than transform it to become the proud nation and power it once had been the last time it had been independent millennia ago. That imagery drove from where the title came: to break cleanly from this deteriorating, paralyzing and destructive strategic imagery that began to come consensus in Israeli defense community thinking in the framework of highly unrealistic, unmoored and unserious “peace” processes and the tendency to de-risk the fallout of its possible failure by subcontracting Israel’s defense every more yo strategic reliance on the U.S. , whether it was US troops on the Golan or US extending its nuclear umbrella over Israel to allow Israel to accept a nuclear-weapons free zone in the Midfke East and join the NPT. Israel was descending into strategic delusion and setting itself up as the ultimate strategic albatross because if these “peace” processes. The “Clean Break” was meant to break cleanly from that path. Hence its title.
— David Wurmser (@Wurmserscribit) November 3, 2026
Told ya, the "ban military sale to Israel" would follow no more aid. Then sanctions, and after it severing of ties and recognition of a Palestinian state. It's a step by step roadmap for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Ro, below, is auditioning for 2028 presidential primaries, announcing that he'll run on the far Left, against the Center.
— Hussain Abdul-Hussain (@hahussain) November 3, 2026
• Israel is spending much more on defense post October 7 and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future, which dilutes the share of aid made up by the regular FMF and missile defense funding under the MOU. Direct U.S. assistance under the MOU makes up less than 1% of Israel's GDP -- it is an absorbable loss.
— Gabriel Epstein (@GabrielEpsteinX) November 3, 2026
I unintentionally included two posts that give away the actual objective: 1️⃣ A total arms embargo 2️⃣A massive sanctions regime against Israel 3️⃣Eventually, the explicit rejection of Zionism enshrined in American policy It was never about "aid" to Israel, obviously.
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 3, 2026
Nailed it! “The moment the "aid" ceases is the moment we must declare to the Americans and to the entire world: the deed of trust has expired. Israel is not an American aircraft carrier, nor is it subject any longer to the dictates of the State Department. Relations with the American superpower must be based solely on mutual respect, shared values, and overlapping interests—those of two sovereign states. Not of a patron and its client. The cessation of aid is not a threat. It is liberation. The time has come to return to being a free people in our land.”
— Jake Donnelly (@RedWhiteBlueJew) November 3, 2026
As an American, you should be upset. As an Israeli, you should be happy. As someone whose job it is to fight antisemitism, you should be dancing the hora
— Jake Donnelly (@RedWhiteBlueJew) November 3, 2026
Gil Troy: Israel's four major leaders must unite to form a government of national repair
Dear Messrs. Benjamin Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, and Avigdor Liberman,A-G denies Zini's request to interrogate Arab party senior lawmakers, says evidence needed
Please explain: what substantive issue clashes prevent you from making history and governing together?
The ideological differences between you are as misty as the “difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” as they said about America’s 1912 presidential nominees.
United, you can fulfill your respective promises to create a Zionist government, solving Israel’s most pressing problems, while ditching extremists and healing the Jewish people worldwide.
The math is simple. A majority of Israel’s electorate elected you. Twenty-seven plus 21 plus 12 plus 7 yields a dominant 67 seats out of the Knesset’s 120.
You, Mr. Netanyahu, oppose a Palestinian state, call Israel “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” while demanding a “forceful... proactive” security policy and a free economy.
You, Mr. Eisenkot, will govern with anyone who recognizes Israel as a Jewish, democratic, liberal, and egalitarian state, embraces the Declaration of Independence, recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization that cannot rule Gaza, and endorses national service for all.
Following David Ben-Gurion
Be Zionists! Tell left-wingers you’re following David Ben-Gurion, who justified the “half a loaf” 1947 partition compromise, while teaching his son, Amos: “Political matters should not be a question of emotions. The only thing that should be taken into account is what we want and what is best for us, what will lead to the objective, and which are the policies that will make us succeed and which will make us fail.”
Tell right-wingers you’re honoring Ben-Gurion’s rival Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who said: “In an ideal state, compromise between majority and minority should be a permanent rule.”
It’s mind-blowing. Compromises are usually difficult, gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, costly. Your golden path forward is effortless, painless, heartwarming, cheap – and transformational.
Launch a unity government, first designating Israel’s top vote-getter, Netanyahu, prime minister.
You change coalitionists failed to beat him one-on-one. Your arguments overreached. The “conceptzia,” the misconceptions, that caused October 7 blinded Netanyahu – and most everyone else, including Eisenkot and the Americans. Similarly, telling Israelis he mishandled this war, when Israel triumphed under Netanyahu’s leadership, is like telling Americans to trust Iran’s evil regime.
And, once again, foreigners’ demented assaults on him and Israel backfired, boosting Bibi.
A plurality rejected this obsessive demonization of Netanyahu, while a majority demand a change. Netanyahu rotating with Eisenkot as prime minister, then Lieberman as Defense Minister, and Bennett as Education Minister, reflects this election’s mixed message.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara denied a request by Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director David Zini on Tuesday to interrogate Arab party senior lawmakers amid claims of foreign interference in Israel's 26th Knesset elections.
"It is not permissible to interrogate citizens or elected officials without evidence to justify such action," a statement from the Attorney-General's office read, emphasizing that Israel is a "state governed by the rule of law."
The "highly unusual" statement was published due to what the office called "erroneous reports" by Likud and other factions in the coalition bloc accusing Baharav-Miara of attempting to delay the Shin Bet's efforts to investigate the senior lawmakers.
According to Maariv, Zini requested to interrogate the Joint List's Ahmad Tibi, Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas, Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, and one additional official whose name has not been publicized.
N12 News reported that Central Elections Committee (CEC) chairman Noam Sohlberg had earlier approved Zini's request to use technological and surveillance capabilities in the investigation against the officials.
The Shin Bet's investigation was launched following an initial directive by Sohlberg, citing "severe suspicions... regarding improper influence through foreign funding by entities acting against Israeli interests during the elections."
The A-G's office noted in its statement that the Shin Bet "failed to transfer the collected investigative materials to the special investigative team" over the past few days, "thereby effectively delaying the handling of the matter."
"The law enforcement system is working swiftly and professionally to uncover the truth based on the material currently in its possession, and decisions regarding the investigation will be made accordingly," it concluded.
It is now clear that Eisenkot will be the first to be asked to form a government. When he goes to the President tomorrow, he will have more recommendations than Netanyahu, and probably many more. Here are the numbers as we know them now. Eisenkot has the four Change Bloc parties, which together hold 48 Knesset seats. Netanyahu has only four of the five parties that ran with him, for 46 seats as UTJ has declared itself agnostic. Ra’am and the Joint List are not counted in either total, but they will clearly do whatever Eisenkot asks of them, whether that means recommending him or staying on the sidelines. So what does Eisenkot do with the mandate? He will have six weeks from tomorrow, and essentially two options: a unity government with Netanyahu, or a government that includes the Haredim. He may be using the Haredi option as leverage against Netanyahu, or it may be a real option. Either way, here is what is on the table. United Torah Judaism wants a draft law that is better, by its own standards, than the Bismuth bill, which critics nicknamed the draft-evasion law. It wants a law with no sanctions and no enlistment targets. As it happens, a solution like that already exists, and the man who proposed it is Avigdor Liberman. In 2017, as defense minister and a close friend of the Haredim, he offered them such a law. To this day they regret that they followed the most extreme voice among them and said no. Now Eisenkot needs to know whether Liberman and Bennett are truly with him, or whether they will push him off a cliff to score points in the next election. And nobody knows whether such a law would survive the High Court.
— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) November 3, 2026
🚨 MANSOUR ABBAS CONSULTED HAMAS ABOUT JOINING ISRAEL'S GOVERNMENT. YES, REALLY. According to *himself*, Abbas discussedwith Hamas surrounding his party’s political decisions. What are you willing to give up for some good coffee? I doubt it bit... 🎥 Watch the video and hear it for yourself. 👆
— Regavim (@RegavimEng) November 2, 2026
Archived here:
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 3, 2026
Jonathan Tobin: The sacrifice of Haley Stevens and the future of the Democrats
Not drinking the Kool-Aid
Stevens’ primary loss need not have ended her career. At only 43, there was no reason to believe she couldn’t try again for any number of high offices in the future. But the price for that meant backing El-Sayed despite his campaign that rested on the claim that she was nothing but a hireling of Jewish interests.
Nevertheless, Jewish Democrats, like Schumer, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and state attorney general Dana Nessel, had no trouble lining up behind El-Sayed. Nessel even claimed that his election was more important than the survival of Israel or even of the Jewish people.
But though Stevens appeared to try to do the same, she just couldn’t force herself to drink the party Kool-Aid on El-Sayed.
Was it the growing evidence of his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood? Or was it the antisemitic pro-El-Sayed video produced by Cenk Uygur? Uygur is the uncle and mentor of the Jew-hating streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed. In the advertisement, the Jews are blamed for the price of bananas and eggs, because America was helping Israel kill Palestinians. But the Democratic candidate hesitated to disavow or condemn it.
Last week, Stevens asked that El-Sayed take a firm stand on such Jew-hatred and also apologize for the way he had demonized her. But as he had demonstrated since the primary, he had no interest in moving to the center in order to mollify mainstream Democrats like her. Instead, and with the help of liberal media like The New York Times, he tried to turn the issue around on Stevens.
Much of the media went along with his effort to claim that those who condemned his extremism and Jew-hatred were Islamophobic bigots and that he was the second coming of President John F. Kennedy and an avatar of religious tolerance.
Her refusal to let his extremist stands go was interpreted as obsessive behavior on her part. And in a classic trope of antisemitism in which Jews and those linked with them are viewed as pursuing their own agendas at the expense of others, the Times decided to bolster the claim that her reluctance to go along with the rest of her party was due to her engagement to a Jewish man and the possibility that she will convert to Judaism prior to their marriage next year.
Her fiancé, Jason Turkish, is a lawyer with a record of fundraising for Democrats and has endorsed Rogers. But when El-Sayed not only wouldn’t apologize but doubled-down on his anti-Israel stands and said she wasn’t welcome at a campaign rally, she decided to publicly back Rogers.
A political obituary
This probably would have gone a bit better for Stevens if she had never said she would back El-Sayed. But even if she had stated her terms for an endorsement of the primary winner from the start, it would have still been held against her by most Democrats and likely would have been brought up in future campaigns.
Still, the personal attacks on her as mentally unstable and a traitor to her party from fellow Democrats have little to do with her character and everything to do with the bargain they have made with the antisemitic left. The choice facing her was one of sacrificing her career or her principles and though she dithered over it for months, in the end, she made the only choice a decent person could. It’s obvious that her future in a party in which hostility to Israel and opposition to immigration law enforcement have become the organizing principles is over.
As legal analyst and retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz has pointed out, political liberals like him and many other Jews, who have loyally supported the Democratic Party throughout their lives, aren’t the ones who have changed. They’ve been abandoned by a party that has embraced open antisemites. And have made falling in line with that disgraceful position a litmus test of party loyalty. That’s a warning that the diminishing number of pro-Israel Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has maintained a cautious silence on El-Sayed, cannot ignore.
Her political obituary that is being written in the wake of her endorsement of Rogers illustrates the truth of a disturbing yet undeniable fact. In denouncing her, Democrats are telling us that, win or lose on Election Day, people like Abdul El-Sayed are the future of their party and those like Haley Stevens are its past.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA): “Abdul El-Sayed is a communist who hates America. He is in a spiritual union with Hasan Piker, who believes America deserved 9/11.” https://t.co/Ymh22jRCVq
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) November 2, 2026
Maine senator’s campaign office vandalized with red paint, ‘blood on her hands’ graffiti
The campaign office of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in Biddeford, Maine, was vandalized overnight, with red paint poured on the sidewalk and the words “blood on her hands” painted outside the entrance, according to photographs released by her campaign.Dems trying to ‘make an example’ of Haley Stevens, experts say
Biddeford police received a report of the vandalism shortly before 11 p.m. on Monday and are investigating, local media reported.
“We don’t know the motive at this time,” a campaign spokesman told JNS on Tuesday.
Katie Brown, Collins’s chief of staff, told JNS that “this is another incident in a series and the second attempt at our Biddeford office to intimidate the senator and her staff.”
“These tactics are disturbing, but not effective,” Brown said. “Our staff is undeterred and on the job.”
Collins is seeking a sixth term in office against Democrat challenger Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate president who has accused Israel of “genocide.” His campaign website calls for ending U.S. military funding to Israel.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) was right to distance herself from Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former Detroit health director, and his antisemitic statements and to endorse former Republican congressman Mike Rogers, even as she incurred the wrath of her party, according to Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement.Haley Stevens drew a red line on antisemitism, even if Democrats won't
“I think that the Democratic Party’s reaction demonstrates that they want to make an example of her,” Lewin told JNS. “They want to make it as public and as painful as possible in order to deter any other Democrat from even thinking about possibly raising concerns about antisemitism being expressed by any other Democratic candidate in the future.”
The Democratic Party “seems so determined to take the Senate that it doesn’t matter to them if the Jews are harmed in the process,” Lewin said. “I certainly felt that what she did was very brave and very principled.”
Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the primary, announced her endorsement of Rogers on Sunday, after El-Sayed refused to condemn an antisemitic political ad. Her Jewish fiancé, Jason Turkish, had said that he would vote for Rogers.
Since the endorsement, Stevens has been accused of betraying party values, changing her endorsement because she was bitter about being left out of the campaign and being manipulated and controlled by her fiancé.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the self-declared Jewish “guardian,” accused Stevens of a “despicable betrayal,” and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told Politico on Monday that Stevens “made a terrible decision” and “blindsided everyone and isolated herself from the House Democratic caucus.”
There will be a “discussion about appropriate next steps upon our return,” Jeffries told Politico, and Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that Stevens is “not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.”
Stevens stated on Monday that “some critics have also dragged my fiancé into this, suggesting he or others must have made my decision for me.”
“Think about what that says. A woman can serve in Congress, run statewide and fight for her convictions and still be told that when she makes a choice people dislike, someone else must be pulling the strings,” the congresswoman said. “That is sexism dressed up as political analysis. My fiancé has his own views. I have mine. I made this decision, and I am proud of it. Do not question my independence simply because you disagree with my conclusion.”
“What has troubled me almost as much as this experience is my party’s reaction. Instead of asking why a lifelong Democrat reached this point, some leaders rushed to condemn me, question my motives and push me out,” she wrote. “That response reveals something deeply troubling about what is missing in today’s Democratic Party.”
Lewin told JNS that the Democratic Party’s response was intended to discourage other Democrats from challenging Jew-hatred in their ranks.
If Democrats are willing to overlook serious concerns about a candidate's rhetoric and positions because defeating a Trump-endorsed Republican is considered more important, what message does that send to Jewish Americans?
If the party concludes that Jewish voters will remain loyal regardless of how dismissively their concerns are treated, it has little incentive to change.
There must be political consequences when a party fails to uphold the values it claims to represent.
Jewish voters should not be expected to provide unconditional loyalty while being told that their concerns are secondary to the larger political objective.
A party that wants to retain the trust of Jewish Americans must put forward candidates who understand that protecting Jews is just as much a part of its moral commitments as protecting any other vulnerable community.
What deserves recognition in Haley Stevens' decision is not necessarily the political outcome it produces, or even the candidate she has chosen to support.
We should not have to agree with every political decision she has made to recognize the significance of this one. Nor does commending her require endorsing Mike Rogers.
This is not an argument about how anyone should vote. It is an argument about what we should expect of our elected officials: the willingness to draw a line when something violates their conscience, even when doing so threatens their standing within their own party.
We often speak about political courage as though it belongs exclusively to those who challenge the other side. But the more meaningful test comes when the challenge is directed inward, when a politician risks the support of allies, donors, colleagues, and voters rather than remain silent for the sake of party unity.
Political parties are coalitions, not moral authorities. They deserve our support when they uphold our values, and our criticism when they fail to do so.
We may debate Stevens' judgment, her politics, or the consequences of her decision. But we should not overlook what it takes to make it. In a political culture that too often rewards loyalty over principle, Stevens has reminded us that conscience must sometimes come before political convenience. That deserves our respect.
Hamas Piker: I HATE AMERICA! YOU DESERVED 9/11 DNC: Well, we have a big tent! Haley Stevens: I don't think we should blame Jews for produce DNC: YOU TRAITOR! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A USED CONDOM! What a time to be alive.
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) November 3, 2026
I also like the implication that if you aren't Jewish there is literally no reason to care about antisemitism.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) November 3, 2026
As others have pointed out, this implies that Ken had the opportunity for years to kick out DSA and anyone associated with Uncommitted, or at the very least make them feel unwelcome, and didn’t.
— GBR (@GayBearRes) November 3, 2026
Arab American PAC fueling Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign headed by brother of Amal leader involved in TWA Flight 847 hijacking
Just days before Michigan cast ballots for the general election, U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed attended a banquet for a political action committee headed by one of his most ardent supporters.
“Osama, I want to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank you for bringing us together over these 42 years,” El-Sayed told Arab American News founder Osama Siblani, head of the Arab American Political Action Committee.
New footage from this event El-Sayed praises Osama Siblani (who calls Hamas "freedom fighters") for his "leadership" and says "we stand on the shoulders of giants." El-Sayed will stand with terrorism sympathizers, but not Haley Stevens. https://t.co/NyIfCgIeQv https://t.co/XD1hGQSec5
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) November 2, 2026
“You know, it is no coincidence that you’ve been doing this work now for 42 years. I am turning 42 on Saturday,” he said at the Oct. 28 event. “So, you know, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We walk the path that you and so many others have made wider.”
Other attendees at the event included AAPAC-endorsed Democratic nominees Jocelyn Benson for governor, Garlin Gilchrist for secretary of state, and Eli Savit for attorney general, the Arab American News reported
“As you know, I have waited a long time for this moment,” Siblani told the roughly 500 attendees at AAPAC’s 29th annual banquet. “I am 72-years-old, and I have worked nonstop for 42 years, looking forward to a moment when I could feel proud. The moment I have been waiting for has arrived, and I know that, like mem, you are proud of this man who has made us all proud. His name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, Michigan’s next U.S. senator!”
Siblani framed the election as an opportunity to push back on undeserved and Islamophobic attacks from Republicans that target innocent Muslims for how they pray.
“When religion becomes a political weapon and ethnicity becomes a reason for suspicion, the danger extends beyond one candidate or one community,” Siblani said. “It threatens the promise of equal citizenship in the United States.”
“We belong in this country, the United States of America,” he said. “We have helped build it, and together we can help change it for the better.”
But critics contend it’s not how Siblani and El-Sayed pray that’s concerning, but rather how they talk and the people who they call friends that would gain a direct pipeline to the nation’s first Muslim senator, if elected.
El-Sayed and Siblani have been in an alliance for years, speaking alongside each other at pro-Hamas rallies and events in the Arab community.
Since this overrated hack is back to penning his vitriolic antisemitic screeds, I might as well repost one of the most enjoyable & scathing book reviews I've written, taking down this fraud's most recent book. Yes, Ta-Nehisi Coates is a charlatan. 👇 https://t.co/Xh3JYOEu7e https://t.co/yfPxx0gcUC
— Mike Coté (@ratlpolicy) November 3, 2026
In this list of "Jewish leaders" there are five rabbis. One "is the first rabbi to lead a Unitarian Universalist Congregation." None lead mainstream congregations. One leads a tiny Reconstructionist group that meets in a church. Another is part-time, leading a small congregation in part-time services every other week. The other two have no congregations. There is also a Reverend Lauren Zinn, who was ordained by an interfaith program and doesn't purport to be any sort of Jewish clergy. And like half the people who signed don't even provide their last names, so you have no idea if they are Jews are even real. This is what I call news by press release, where some fringe group issues a press release and gullible or willful media outlets print it like it's real news.
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) November 3, 2026
NY Times mocked over story claiming Abdul El-Sayed’s Jewish supporters include man named ‘Jack Mehoff’
The New York Times came in for online mockery Tuesday after a list it published of Jewish voters saying they would back Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for Senate included the unfortunate moniker “Jack Mehoff.”
The Times initially reported Sept. 17 on the letter, which it said was signed by “more than 500 people who identify as Jewish leaders or voters” in the Mitten State and insisted that El-Sayed is “clearly the better choice for Jews.”
The story included a link to a public Google Doc managed by a group calling itself Michigan Jews for Democracy.
Mehoff appears at No. 403 on the alphabetical list, which was also promoted by the El-Sayed campaign the same day the Times published its story.
Records reviewed by The Post lists someone named Jack Mehoff as living on campus at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
A university spokesman told The Post he could “confirm that MSU does not have a record (past or present) of that particular individual attending the university.”
Eagle-eyed Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine spotted the eyebrow-raising moniker on the morning of Election Day.
“The New York Times will openly and without shame publish a list of ‘Jews for Abdul,’ which includes the name ‘Jack Mehoff’ and then completely ignore that this fatally compromises the whole story and just power through it,” Levine wrote on X.
Some big names included on the list are all too real, with Democratic Michigan Attorney General nominee Eli Savit and the father-and-son duo of former congressmen Sander and Andy Levin among them.
However, hundreds of signers gave only a first name and last initial, suggesting minimal effort to vet them.
The clergy who signed the letter have also had their credentials called into question.
One, Rabbi Chava Bahle, made history in 2014 as the first rabbi to lead a Unitarian Universalist church.
Another, Rabbi Alana Alpert, leads a Reconstructionist congregation whose adherents insist Judaism is defined by culture and social values rather than traditions or rituals such as keeping kosher.
I'll do you one better. One of the "Jewish leaders" who signed the letter backing El-Sayed that the NYT promoted is Michigan Democratic Party officer Liano Sharon. After the attack on Temple Israel synagogue, he wrote "That was not an anti-Semitic attack. It was anti-Zionist." He also wrote "Zionists are neo-Nazis" and described Haley Stevens's behavior as "neo-Nazi." They're really dragging the bottom of the barrel here.
— Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) November 3, 2026
@nytimes @jennymedina Nor was that the only recent instance of sanitization and erasure. An Oct. 29 Times report omitted the terrorist attack and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s response. https://t.co/jSwMzymaah
— CAMERA (@CAMERA4Truth) November 3, 2026
As I keep pointing out, the Times has had umpteen stories about leftist Jews alienated re Israel since 10/7, but none about the much broader phenomenon of “the great surge” of Jews more interested in Jewish life in general and Israel in particular since then. Iow, it has been pushing a tendentious narrative.
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) November 2, 2026
Ms. Newton had 366 followers, and started the day with many fewer, yet this post trumpeting some unknown, new organization's endorsement of El-Sayed somehow got 1 million hits and counting. It's social media manipulation all the way down.
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) November 2, 2026
"if people don't have peaceful avenues to express their grievances through the democratic process," The terrorist who tried to murder dozens of preschoolers in Michigan lived in the US. He didn't lack peaceful avenue to express his grievances. Nor would murdering preschoolers do anything to address his grievances.
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) November 2, 2026
Lyle and Adam Brody want you to vote for Abdul El Sayed for Senate! https://t.co/5YJhT7Gf07
— Lyle Culpepper (@ShutupLyle) November 3, 2026
'Judaism Beyond Zionism': Meet the 'Jews for Melat' Supporting Denver's Socialist, Israel-Hating Congresswoman-To-Be
As Denver congressional candidate Melat Kiros—a socialist who said the Sept. 11, 2001, and Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks were "inevitable"—faced mounting criticism from Jewish voters, "Jews for Melat" came to her defense, publishing video endorsements and organizing "liberatory" shabbat dinners meant to showcase the "coalition of Jewish Coloradans" rallying behind her.
The leaders include a disability activist, Al Cannington ("she/they"), who has assailed "disability rights organizations" for their "silence on #Gaza"; a self-described rabbi, Michael Kengmana, looking to create "a Judaism beyond Zionism"; an activist, Max Mankoff, who says that "anti-Zionism goes hand in hand with Jewish values"; and a former social worker, Spencer Hacker, who has argued that Israel is to blame for rising antisemitism.
Cannington, a self-described "white, disabled, queer, ashkenazi jew whose heart is deeply broken and fully enraged by the ongoing annihilation of Palestinian lives" issued a "crip call to action" in November 2023 urging "disabled people living in the US" to call for a "long lasting ceasefire in Israel-Palestine." The call to action includes "content warnings" for "settler colonialism" and "eugenics."
Another "Jews for Melat" leader, Kengmana, is a self-described rabbi who doesn't appear to lead a congregation but rather holds monthly anti-Zionist Shabbat services with the First Unitarian Society of Denver and weekly Havdalah services with an online synagogue "dedicated to inclusive, musical, and progressive Jewish worship." As a rabbi, he aims to create "a Judaism beyond Zionism," according to a description posted by the First Unitarian Society of Denver. Kengmana was listed alongside Cannington as a point of contact for a "Passover grief vigil" the Denver/Boulder chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) held outside an immigrant detention facility in April in which the protesters demanded "collective liberation for all people unjustly detained from Colorado to Palestine."
Mankoff, who helps run the group's Instagram account and routinely posts interviews with Kiros, says that "anti-Zionism goes hand in hand with Jewish values." Mankoff said in June that accusations of antisemitism against Kiros are "really hurtful" because "it takes the attention away from the actual dangers."
A founder of "Jews for Melat," Hacker in an Instagram post accused the media of "fomenting antisemitism by attacking Hasan Piker," the socialist influencer who said that "America deserved 9/11" and that Israel is "much worse" than Hamas—and a Kiros ally. "Antisemitism is increasing but this is due to the actions of Israel and the false notion that Israel speaks and acts on behalf of Jews," Hacker wrote in the caption. He spent a year working in Denver Public Schools as a social worker but wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he left "due to politics and restrictions from building and district-level leaders that hampered my abilities as a social worker."
“The leaders include a disability activist, Al Cannington (‘she/they’), who has assailed ‘disability rights organizations’ for their ‘silence on #Gaza’; a self-described rabbi, Michael Kengmana, looking to create ‘a Judaism beyond Zionism’; an activist, Max Mankoff, who says that ‘anti-Zionism goes hand in hand with Jewish values’; and a former social worker, Spencer Hacker, who has argued that Israel is to blame for rising antisemitism,” @ethanrbarton reports. “All four have spoken to the press—and post prodigiously on social media—about the Jews for Melat effort,” writes Barton.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) November 3, 2026
Tucker just emailed this to his supporters. He's actively campaigning for the DSA https://t.co/TdhEh2AG4m
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 3, 2026
