INTERNATIONAL
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s plane was the target of four drones as he landed at the Dublin, Ireland, airport around 11 pm., Monday, Dec.1 Who sent the military-class drones and why they were sent are open questions now under investigation by Ireland’s security forces. The drones arrived minutes after Zelenskyy disembarked from his presidential aircraft, their unknown operator(s) making no effort to damage the Ukrainian plane. Speculation was that the perpetrator was Russia, which is engaged in a four-year-long war with Ukraine, but other theories included hobbyists. After their visit to the air space around the airport, the drones were flown to the Irish sea, where they circled Ireland’s naval vessel, LE William Butler Yeats, and then disappeared over the horizon, the BBC reports.
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Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum met with U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Washington D.C. for the 2026 World Cup draw ceremony at the Kennedy Centre. The occasion gave Sheinbaum, Carey, and Trump, whose countries will co-host next year’s World Cup competition, time for a 45-minute meeting at which Sheinbaum said they “agreed to continue working together on trade issues with our teams.” Fifa President Gianni Infantino presented Trump with the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize “in recognition of his exceptional and extraordinary actions to promote peace and unity around the world.”
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Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Virginia) remains unconvinced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t order a second strike on a suspected drug-running boat Sept. 2 off the coast of Venezuela, The Hill reports. Two survivors of the first strike, who were in the water hanging onto the damaged craft, were killed in the second strike. Admiral Frank Bradley had told a closed-door meeting with leaders of the Intelligence and Armed Services committees on Dec. 4 that Hegseth hadn’t given an order to “kill everybody” aboard the boat. Said Vindman: “A Navy admiral, very well regarded, with all those years of experience — shooting at shipwrecked sailors on its face sounds absurd. So, he must have gotten an order.”
Democratic Congressman Shri Thanedar of Michigan, meanwhile, announced he will file articles of impeachment against Hegseth. On Fox News, Thanedar said, “This secretary has to go. He’s incompetent. He’s, you know, violated – he has committed war crimes. He must go.”
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Slovenia joined Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands in their pledge to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest now that Israel has been accepted to join the competition. That prompted Israel’s Eurovision winner of 1998, Dana International, to write on Instagram that Israel is the most liberal country in the Middle East, with many of its citizens opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. “You don’t punish an entire country because you disagree politically with its government,” she wrote, according to The Times of Israel.
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Benjamin Landa, a Chabadnik who is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, is President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Hungary. But his Senate confirmation is up in the air given the fines his company, Sentosa Care, has received for its administration of nursing homes, Jewish Insider reports.
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Ha’aretz reports that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has ordered a probe into the failure one year prior to the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre to fully investigate captured correspondence outlining Hamas’ plan to launch a surprise invasion of Israel.
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The Jerusalem Post reports Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are preparing a plan to increase to 36 months the length of time an IDF soldier will spend as a soldier. The increase from the current 30-32 months will add “tens of thousands of service days per year,” a spokesman in Katz’s office said. The move comes as the government considers passing legislation exempting the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community from compulsory service. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the government wants the Knesset to approve “a budget of corruption and draft-dodging.”
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Israel Hayom summarizes the Mideast portion of the U.S. National Security Strategy, released by the White House on Friday, as following: “The document defines Washington’s core regional interests as ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into hostile hands, that the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea remain open to shipping, that the region does not serve as a platform for exporting terrorism to the United States, and finally and explicitly that ‘Israel remains secure.’” The newspaper said “Israel appears in the document five times, always in a positive context.”
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Jewish Voice for Peace spokesperson Sonya Meyerson-Knox reports the anti-Zionist organization is celebrating the decisions by Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina to not reinvest in Israel Bonds—decisions that cost Israel $27 million in investments. She quoted JVP member Dr. Noa Nessim as saying “As a Jewish North Carolinian, I am so proud to be part of a multi-faith movement of people across the state who have proven that we will never stop fighting for Palestinian lives.”
However, Israel Bonds President and CEO Dani Naveh issued the following statement: “The claims that radical anti-Israel organizations have made in recent press statements about Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina divesting from Israel bonds sold by Development Corporation for Israel/Israel Bonds are categorically false. This small group continues to spread falsehoods to try and advance their hateful agenda, but the aggregate numbers speak for themselves. Since October 7, 2023, a record-breaking $5.7 billion worldwide and counting has been invested in Israel through DCI. This track record demonstrates the tremendous support for the U.S.-Israel relationship that we see in communities across the United States.”
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Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reports David Sevi was installed as Turkiye’s chief rabbi in a ceremony Thursday night in Istanbul. Besides being the rabbi of Neve Shalom Synagogue, Sevi, 70, serves it as its cantor and shochet.
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NATIONAL
U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) and Jen Kiggana (R-Virginia) are leading an effort in the House of Representatives to extend for a year federal tax credits for health care and to tighten eligibility requirements, while in the Senate a vote on a three-year extension is planned. The New York Times reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), the Minority Leader, said, “It’s going to be one of the most important votes we take because it’s showing who is on the side of the American people and lowering their health care costs and who is on the side of the big special interests and is going to raise health care costs.”
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William Daroff, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COP), said “I am stunned, offended, and frankly angry at Senator Van Hollen’s personal attack” on Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reports. Van Hollen’s press secretary had called Halber an “apologist for the Netanyahu government” in response to Halber calling van Hollen “the leading senator agitating against Israel in the United States Senate.”
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Washington Monthly Politics Editor Bill Scher recently was appointed president of the committee overseeing the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum in Northampton, Massachusetts. He wrote in the current edition of the monthly that policy advisor Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, is far-more anti-immigration than the 30th U.S. President who signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national quotas for the first time.
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Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, says Republicans in Congress appear cowed by MAGA conservatives to stand up against right-wing antisemitism. As an example, she cited the introduction of a bill by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York) to codify the Coast Guard’s policy prohibiting displays of swastikas and hate symbols. “This bill is unlikely to go anywhere without GOP support and Republicans are unlikely to support it because opposing swastikas and other hate symbols is apparently now viewed as a partisan Democratic position,” Soifer wrote in a column.
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Yael Lerman, director of the Saidoff Law division of StandWithUs, and her assistant director Gadi Dotz wrote to the State Board of Administration of Florida, requesting that it initiate proceedings to place Guinness World Records Ltd. on its list of “Scrutinized Companies or Other Entities that Boycott Israel” in response to this Guinness policy: “We are not generally processing record applications from the Palestinian Territories [sic] or Israel, or where either is given as the attempt location, except those done in cooperation with a UN humanitarian aid relief agency.”
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STATE & LOCAL
California Democrats U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Sara Jacobs are among federal legislators urging U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to push for Mexico to invest further in the binational effort to staunch the flow of sewage from Tijuana into San Diego. Senator Alex Padilla and Congressmen Scott Peters, Juan Vargas, and Mike Levin, all Democrats, also signed Friday’s letter suggesting the matter be given priority as the Trump Administration begins its review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World