JOE MUST WALK AN ISRAELI TIGHTROPE
Go too easy on Netanyahu over Gaza war and risk losing younger liberals; get too tough & hard-line donors may flee
Israel’s shocking killing of aid workers in Gaza has put President Biden in perhaps the most serious political bind of the war between Israel and Hamas.
With Democratic anger rising over the increasingly bloody war, Biden appears to be using the killings of seven World Central Kitchen “angels” as an opportunity to take a much harder line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He told the Israeli leader Thursday that U.S. support will hinge on Israel’s next steps.
That approach could help Biden bolster support among young and progressive anti-war voters and consolidate the Democratic base as he heads toward the epic clash with former President Donald Trump, which polls say could be decided by a very thin margin in a few battleground states.
But Biden and his campaign need to balance those concerns against the chance of blowback from Jewish voters and pro-Israel donors.
And the president can also ill afford to risk alienating moderate and independent swing voters in battleground states, who may be more likely to back the Jewish state. After all, they are likely going to be the ultimate deciders in the November election.
“Biden is caught between a rock and a hard place,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, told the Daily News. “The Democratic Party base has moved sharply toward the Palestinians, including young people who normally can be expected to vote Democratic by a wide margin.”
The latest burst of outrage erupted last week when Israel killed the workers in a targeted attack that took place as they traveled in a marked vehicle and had informed Israeli authorities of their planned movements. Israel has apologized for the deadly attack, which Netanyahu defended as a mistake carried out in the fog of war.
Biden has used some of his harshest language of the war to criticize Israel over the killings.
He called Netanyahu Thursday to warn him to make changes to avoid killing innocent Palestinian civilians and aid workers — or else.
So far, Biden has largely avoided any serious damage from the Democratic presidential primary contest although about 10% of voters in several states including Michigan, Minnesota and Washington voted for uncommitted slates of delegates to express opposition to his Gaza policy.
In New York, critics of Israel say 12% of voters cast blank ballots in a similar protest during Tuesday’s primary that Biden otherwise won in a walkover.
Now that Biden and Trump have wrapped up their parties’ nominations, the president in particular has turned his attention to marshaling key blocs of traditional Democratic voters.
That big-tent coalition include Blacks, Jews, Latinos and younger voters, all of whom polls say are not yet 100% in his corner in the overwhelming numbers he needs to beat Trump.
Anti-war activists say they are doing Biden a favor by mobilizing young people and others to urge him to change course on Gaza.
“Democrats are going to need each and every one of these voters if we are going to unify the coalition needed to defeat Trump in November,” said Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the New York Working Families Party.
Political analysts point out that the war in Gaza is virtually the only key policy issue — including hot button topics like abortion, the economy and immigration — where a large majority of Democratic voters disagree with the White House’s position.
“This is the single biggest problem for him within the party … not just with Arab-Americans in Dearborn but with all Democrats,” Dave Weigel, a journalist with Semafor, said on CNN.
Progressive activists and lawmakers have been calling on Biden to rein in Netanyahu for months.
“Most Americans do not want to be complicit in this,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of the most prominent critics of Israel in Congress. “Do I think it could hurt Biden? Yeah, I do.”
But more recently, even mainstream Democrats have signaled uneasiness with the course of the war.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the most-senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history, delivered a speech last month in which he criticized Netanyahu and called for fresh elections in Israel. The unprecedented speech may have given fellow Democrats the green light to speak more freely, especially after the aid workers’ killings.
Not all Democrats agree that Biden would be making a smart political move by bullying Israel. Pro-Israel activists say the level of Democratic criticism of Israel is overblown and Biden is handling the difficult relationship as well as can be expected.
Mark Mellman of the Democratic Majority for Israel warned any shift away from Israel could also cost Biden votes of Jews and supporters of Israel, which could also make a difference in a very tight election.
“Joe Biden’s policies on Israel are born out of decades of deep involvement in the region,” Mellman said. “There’s no reason to think they will change and that’s one of the reasons he has so much support from voters who support Israel.”
Audiences will get a rush from “Beyond the Rush,” a movie filming on the streets of New York.
First-time director/writer Rob Sayegh has assembled three Academy Award nominees — Cathy Moriarty of “Raging Bull” fame, John Savage of “The Deer Hunter” and Eric Roberts of “Runaway Train.”
The cast includes Mena Suvari of “American Beauty” and Frankie Faison (“Do the Right Thing”), with the lead role played by Bill Barrett.
Also of note, Sean Fosse, the grandson of late dance legend Bob Fosse, will be making his big screen debut playing a prosecuting attorney.
The soundtrack will include a song by Bee Gee Barry Gibb. And celebrating 35 years of Twisted Sister, Dee Snyder sings the film’s title track.
Vernon Reid of Living Colour will play guitar on the track and will also co-write the film’s score alongside Public Enemy guitarist Chris Munger, who is also the film’s music supervisor and co-producer.
PR man Jesse Nash’s song “A Mother’s Love” will play over a key scene.
“We are the little film that could,” laughs director Sayegh. “What I hope to achieve, besides telling a great story by great performers, is that there is always a choice in life, and that no matter how bad it seems, there’s always the possibility for a hopeful ending.”
A prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon tells me a little nip/tuck goes a long way — but too much Botox isn’t always a good thing for actors.
“I have a lot of celebrity patients,” says Dr. Jason Champagne, “and they still need to emote.”
The man responsible for the eyebrows of Chrissy Teigen (inset photo) and Meagan Good says many actors overdo it.
“They still have to be able to move their face,” he adds. “The goal should be to have lines but not as deep.”
Champagne says he can tell “bad plastic surgery” when he sees it. For that reason he doesn’t watch red carpets at award shows, “unless I have patients there,” he says with a laugh.
His specialty is chin implants and what he calls “Champagne Rows” that takes hair from the back of the scalp and intricately places it on existing eyebrows. That’s the procedure he says Mrs. John Legend drops in for, and “Harlem” actress Good, too.
“Some trends on social media have become problematic, though,” he cautions. A lot of people want “buckle fat” removed now. “It’s a little fat pad in the cheek, but if you take it out some patients can look ‘hollow’ as they age.”
His simple advice is to talk to a lot of people before doing anything. “The onus is on the practitioner to do the right thing for the patient in a conservative way that looks natural and doesn’t look done.”
And yes, he still does use some Botox on patients. But with caution. “I don’t want that frozen look. I ask patients to move their foreheads, raise their eyebrows and scowl,” he says. “I look to see how strong those muscles are and then decide how much to use.”
It took 30 years and 400 on-camera interviews to make “Jimi Hendrix: The Documentary.”
The film by Emmy Award-winner David Kramer premiered Saturday at the Nyack Film Festival.
Hendrix (main photo), a self-taught genius on electric guitar, fatally overdosed at the age of 27 in 1970 after releasing three albums, culminating with “Electric Ladyland.” He had astonished the world performing at the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock.
“He was revered by musicians, adored by women, idolized and respected by fans and musicians around the world,” said Kramer.
Among the discoveries Kramer claims in the doc: “The Mafia was trying to get to Hendrix and take over his business,” he said.
Sometimes heroism just doesn’t work. Doing his daily 9-mile beach run in Southampton recently, 75 Main owner Zach Erdem came across a baby dolphin that seemed to have lost its way, floating in an inlet.
The restaurateur immediately jumped into the water to save it and put it back in the ocean.
“When I reached this beauty of the sea, I was saddened to see that it was lifeless and could not be saved,” Erdem told Hampton Sheet publisher Joan Jedell.
At that point he carried the dolphin to rest it on the beach and called animal rescue centers.
“I just wanted to put it back in the ocean and make sure it had a beautiful life,” added Erdem.
Ballerina Misty Copeland is supporting Youth America Grand Prix’s 25th Anniversary Gala at Lincoln Center on April 18.
The organization, which has the largest ballet scholarship program in the world, is responsible for the 30% increase in dancers of diverse backgrounds in over 80 ballet companies around the globe, including NYC Ballet and ABT.
The benefit’s chairs include Mick Jagger’s girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, Chelsea Clinton, Carolina Herrera designer Wes Gordon, Indré Rockefeller and Kamie Lightburn, who is hosting a kickoff party in Palm Beach on April 9.
The night’s Creative Chair is Marcella Hymowitz, who brought in Dennis Basso to make his ballet debut as a designer and African-American designer B Michael to do the costumes for a piece with music by Karen LeFrak, wife of real estate billionaire Richard LeFrak.
Over 300 dancers from six continents ages 9 to 19 will be on stage in the show called “The Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow,” which includes dancers from the Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Princess Grace schools.
Out & About: Vanessa Williams and Julia Haart helped Alan Cumming celebrate his Broadway show (“Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age”) at Nerai … The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl winning coach Andy Reid eating at Carnegie Diner & Cafe … Former N.J. Gov. Chris Christie at a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden … John Travolta and his co-stars Natali Yura and Lukas Haas at the Gasparilla Film Festival in Tampa Bay, Fla., talking about ducking indoor drones that whizzed perilously close to their heads while filming the heist film “Cash Out” … The city’s single and dapper Mayor Adams swanned into Casa Cipriani, New York’s most exclusive private club, to meet a thirtysomething mystery blond who was wearing a sexy white pantsuit for a latenight romantic supper for two.
Sometime in 1911, little Peter Kudzinowski, 9, dived into a pond near his family’s home in Scranton, Pa., and smacked his head on a rock. He quickly recovered from the skull fracture he received, and no one gave much thought to the incident or him until 1928.
That’s when Detroit police picked up a drunk during the first week of December. As he dried out in his cell, he talked a lot, most of it gibberish. But then, the topic turned to his remorse over a “bad thing” he had done back east three weeks earlier.
A day later, Inspector John Underwood of the Jersey City police received a telegram from Detroit.
“Holding Peter Kudzinowski, alias Roy Lambert, alias Roy Rogers. Admits murder of 7-year-old boy in meadow near Susquehanna Bridge, between Jersey City and Secaucus, Nov. 17 last. States he lured boy from east side of New York City. Advise if you want him.”
In Detroit, Kudzinowski’s incoherent raving had turned into a detailed confession of a horrible crime, with a description of his young victim and his dumping ground for the child’s corpse. During the same boozy soliloquy, Kudzinowski admitted that he committed another murder, this one of a friend — Harry Quinn, 28, who vanished in Scranton four years earlier.
Jersey detectives started searching the marshes around Secaucus for a body. But New York police did not have to look far to find the identity of a likely victim.
A child who had vanished on the date Kudzinowski mentioned was big news in the city.
On Nov. 17, Joseph Storelli was playing with his sister Magdalena, 6, in front of the Lower East Side tenement where his family lived. His mother, Louisa, saw the pair as she returned from work. They were watching fish swimming in a tank in the window of a fish market.
Magdalena went home, but Joey, fascinated by the fish, stayed behind. When his mother later yelled “supper” from the tenement window, there was no response.
One of the missing boy’s playmates, Salvatore Grassa, 11, told police that a stranger in a brown suit had approached him and Joey.
“Come with me, and I’ll buy you some candy,” Salvatore recalled him saying. Salvatore ran away, but Joey went with the man.
Police and volunteers — including some of Joey’s school chums — searched every cellar, vacant tenement, alleyway, junkyard and loft for nearly 80 blocks. The Daily News ran a photo of Magdalena holding one of Joey’s shoes up to the nose of a German shepherd. “Now, go find my brother,” The News quoted her saying.
Police believed that Joey would join the growing list of mysterious child disappearances in the neighborhood — until the telegram came from Detroit on Dec. 5.
“FIEND SLEW STORELLI BOY,” The News headline blared the next day.
It took little time for Jersey City police to locate Joey’s battered, frozen body, the throat slashed so deeply that the wound nearly severed the boy’s head.
It was all exactly as Kudzinowski said it would be.
Kudzinowski told police how he met the boy, bought him candy, and took him to a movie. From there, they hopped on a train to Secaucus and walked out into the marshes. Joey became frightened and tried to escape.
“He yelled ‘Mama’ three times. I slapped my hand over his mouth,” Kudzinowski said. “I took out my pocketknife. … I pulled it across Joe’s throat. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
He dumped the body and fled, finally landing in a drunk tank in Detroit.
During questioning by New Jersey police, Kudzinowski spoke of another child murder. On Aug. 25, he was working a railroad job near Lake Hopatcong when he spotted a few families having a picnic. One girl — Julia Mlodzianowska, 6 — wandered
away from the group. Kudzinowski asked her if she would like to go on a boat ride. She said yes, and they started to walk toward the lake.
“When I attempted to attack her, she screamed, so I choked her and beat her to death,” he said.
In a panic, he wrapped the body up and carried it along when he jumped into a boxcar. Three hours later, he got off near Blairstown, N.J. “But I could not bear to leave the body, so I lowered it out of the car,” he said.
He later wrapped the dead girl in newspapers, weighed the package down with a brake shoe, and tossed it into the Delaware River.
On Jan. 9, 1929, Kudzinowski went on trial for Joey’s murder. The bodies of Quinn and Julia were never found.
The killer’s confession formed the basis of the prosecution’s case. For the defense, Kudzinowski’s lawyers tried to prove he was insane.
Defense experts blamed his brutality on that long-ago swim in which Kudzinowski fractured his skull. Jurors examined X-rays of his head, showing physical evidence of the accident.
The defense argued that the injury left him prone to mental problems, including recurring brainstorms that turned him into a monster.
The jury favored the prosecution’s view. Skull fracture notwithstanding, Kudzinowski was sane enough to know that slitting the throat of a child was wrong.
He was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Witnesses said that the man who seemed calm and often bored during his trial was cringing and whimpering as he walked to the chair.
But an hour earlier, he appeared to have accepted his fate.
“I am ready to go,” he said when his lawyers reported that their efforts to gain a last-minute reprieve had failed. “If I got out of here, I probably would do the same thing again.”