Anti-Israel Operative Tapped to Lead Dem Foreign Policy Group Poised to Staff 2028 White House

National Security Action — the Democratic foreign policy vehicle that offloaded dozens of staffers into the Biden administration — is relaunching under Maher Bitar, a Palestinian-American official described by colleagues as ‘easily the most antagonistic to Israel’ of any senior Biden NSC figure. Multiple top Jewish Democrats are raising concerns about the direction a Bitar-led NSA would take on Israel, particularly as the organization explicitly aims to shape Democratic foreign policy heading into the 2028 presidential race and to staff a future Democratic administration.

• Maher Bitar previously served as NSC intelligence director under Biden and was a senior advisor to Sen. Adam Schiff, and has a documented history of anti-Israel activism dating to his undergraduate years at Georgetown, where he led Students for Justice in Palestine.
• National Security Action was founded in 2018 as a Democratic foreign policy infrastructure organization; it fed roughly 50 personnel into senior Biden administration roles including at the State Department, NSC, and CIA.
• The organization is being explicitly positioned to shape the 2028 Democratic presidential field’s approach to Israel — meaning Bitar’s worldview would influence the foreign policy platforms of every major Democratic candidate.
• Jewish Democratic members of Congress and Jewish organizational leaders are on record expressing alarm, with one source telling Jewish Insider that Bitar’s record makes him ‘the wrong person to be setting the Democratic Party’s direction on Israel.’

This is the Democratic Party's foreign policy pipeline — not a think tank, but a staffing machine with a track record of placing its people in positions of actual power. Whoever controls NSA's ideological direction going into 2028 shapes who gets hired, what briefings are written, and what foreign policy a Democratic president inherits on day one. Bitar's selection signals that the party's foreign policy apparatus is moving left on Israel faster than the elected officials publicly acknowledge, and that the Platner dynamic — anti-Israel progressives consolidating at the elite level — has a structural, organizational dimension, not just an electoral one.

A coordinated campaign is underway in Illinois to repeal the state’s anti-BDS law — a measure barring state pension funds from investing in companies that boycott Israel, which passed both chambers without opposition and was signed into law years ago. Activists are now pressuring state lawmakers to roll it back, with demonstrations targeting the Illinois State Board of Investment and escalating pressure on the legislature as the session reaches a critical phase.

• Illinois law currently bars the state’s pension systems from investing in companies that boycott Israel — passed with bipartisan consensus and previously considered settled law.
• BDS-aligned activists are now organizing demonstrations at the Illinois State Board of Investment and pressing legislators for a full repeal during the current session.
• A local newspaper column flags the anti-Israel movement ‘showing signs of life’ in Springfield, noting the organizing is more coordinated than previous attempts.
• If Illinois’s anti-BDS protections are repealed, it would be the first rollback of a state-level anti-BDS statute and would set a dangerous precedent for the 35+ other states with similar laws.

Anti-BDS laws have largely survived legal challenges and political pressure since 2015 — no state has repealed one. An Illinois repeal would break that streak and validate the BDS movement's legislative strategy in other blue-state legislatures. The combination of a newly energized organizing infrastructure and a sympathetic Springfield majority makes this threat more credible than prior attempts.

The four-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire is cracking after Iran launched 15 missiles and 4 drones at the UAE on Monday, setting an oil facility ablaze and hitting commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump described the situation as a ‘little detour working out very nicely’ but the Wall Street Journal reports he is torn on whether to resume strikes — with US and foreign officials saying military action could come within days, timed awkwardly against next week’s Trump-Xi Beijing summit. Israel is simultaneously readying for ceasefire collapse, with cities opening bomb shelters and Netanyahu conducting secret security consultations.

• Iran fired the first cruise missiles at UAE territory since the ceasefire was declared, targeting the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone and multiple commercial vessels — the largest escalation since early April.
• CNN reports Israel and the US are coordinating potential new strikes on Iran to pressure Tehran in negotiations; Israeli cities including Ashdod and Rishon Letzion have opened public bomb shelters.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham called for ‘big, strong and short’ military action; US Gen. Dan Caine and SecDef Hegseth held a Pentagon briefing saying Iran’s attacks are ‘below the threshold’ for resuming war — for now.
• US intelligence says Iran’s nuclear weapon timeline remains 9-12 months, unchanged since Operation Midnight Hammer last June, meaning continued strikes have not materially degraded Iran’s nuclear program.

The ceasefire's collapse calculus is now tied to Trump's China diplomacy — a dynamic that puts Israel's security interests in competition with a broader U.S. foreign policy priority for the first time since the war began. Whether Trump resumes strikes or negotiates a face-saving ceasefire extension will signal whether the U.S.-Israel operational partnership on Iran holds under great-power pressure.

A coordinated overnight antisemitic vandalism campaign struck at least four Jewish properties in Queens — two synagogues, a Jewish preschool/community center, and private homes — with swastikas and pro-Nazi graffiti, leaving the community shaken. The attack landed the same day NYPD released April data showing Jews were targeted in 60% of confirmed hate crimes citywide, a figure that has held stubbornly elevated across multiple months. Mayor Mamdani made a surprise, press-free visit to the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn Monday — a gesture Jewish leaders are reading skeptically against the backdrop of continued antisemitic violence.

• At least four Jewish properties in Queens — including Congregation Machane Chodosh — were hit with swastika vandalism in a coordinated overnight spree; police are investigating as a hate crime.
• NYPD April data shows Jews were targeted in 60% of confirmed hate crimes in New York City, and 59% of total reported hate crimes — a disproportionate victimization rate that has persisted for multiple months.
• Mayor Mamdani visited the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights with NYPD Commissioner Tisch — no press, no religious leaders, first reported by a Chabad community outlet — as Jewish community members called the gesture inadequate.
• Jewish Insider reports community leaders are asking why Mamdani has not addressed the Queens vandalism directly or appeared at the affected synagogues.

Sixty percent of confirmed hate crimes targeting a community that is 8% of the city's population is a sustained structural condition, not a spike — and it is happening under a mayor whose political coalition includes some of the sharpest anti-Israel voices in New York politics. The Jewish Children's Museum visit, conducted without press or community clergy, reads as optics management rather than community engagement.

Counter-terrorism police are investigating an arson attack at a former London synagogue in the east of the capital — the latest in a series of Iran-linked attacks targeting the UK Jewish community since March. Prime Minister Starmer responded by convening an emergency cross-sector summit, warning that Iran’s efforts to destabilize British society ‘will not be tolerated’ and that new legislation targeting ‘malign threats’ is being fast-tracked. Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch separately called antisemitism a ‘national emergency’ and demanded an immediate ban on pro-Palestinian marches.

• UK Counter Terrorism police are investigating the arson at a former synagogue in east London for links to a broader pattern of attacks on Jewish and Israeli community sites — the same network being probed in the Golders Green stabbing.
• PM Starmer convened leaders from business, civil society, health, culture, higher education, and policing for an emergency session with Jewish community representatives Tuesday, pledging new fast-track legislation.
• Starmer warned that any state or actor — explicitly referencing Iran — seeking to ‘undermine social cohesion’ would face consequences; he said it is ‘not enough to simply say we stand with Jewish communities.’
• Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called antisemitism a national emergency and urged a ban on pro-Palestinian marches: ‘If we do not stand up now, then why bother saying Never Again.’

The UK antisemitism crisis has now forced the government into an unprecedented posture: publicly naming Iran as a source of domestic antisemitic terrorism and legislating against it in real time. Whether Starmer's fast-track legislation reaches the threshold of actual deterrence — or remains rhetorical — will be the test that other Western governments are watching.