Nearly everything that moved yesterday is addressed to whoever governs Israel after Tuesday, and none of it is waiting to hear who that'll be. Some of it comes from friends with elections of their own to get through, and some from enemies who'd like their message read before the votes are counted. The parties are at it too, setting out what it'll take to get them into a coalition before anyone's been asked to form one.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Iran: Washington and Jerusalem plan a three-day round on Iran after the midterms, and Netanyahu orders the regime overthrown. See The War Today.
Gaza: Hamas tells the UN's humanitarian coordinator it's ready for another October 7, and asks him to pass it on. See The War Today.
Lebanon: Hezbollah is rebuilding in Beirut and Tyre, an Israeli security official says. See Briefly Noted.
Winter: Ofer Winter turns down Smotrich's offer of a ministry to quit the race, and says his support comes with terms. See Inside Israel.
Draft evaders: Baharav-Miara counts 110,330 evaders or Order 12 cases for the High Court, and Elad riots over one deserter. See Inside Israel.
Judea and Samaria: Rabbis for Human Rights walks about ninety volunteers and Brad Lander into a closed military zone at Nahalin. See Briefly Noted.
Turkey: Ankara signs a defense-industry pact in Doha, and Benghazi's parliament ratifies Tripoli's 2019 maritime deal with Turkey. See Israel and the World.
Influence: The Shin Bet says it took down foreign influence accounts aimed at Tuesday's vote, without saying whose. See Israel and the World.
AIPAC: AIPAC stops endorsing candidates and giving through its PAC, and its super PAC carries on. See Israel and the World.
IHRA: Powell accepts all 27 of Bell's recommendations, IHRA included, and the National Education Union turns the definition down. See Briefly Noted.
New York: A woman stabs a Lubavitcher from Crown Heights in Manhattan's Diamond District and gets away. See Briefly Noted.
Economy: The Bank of Israel holds at 3.25 percent and lifts this year's growth forecast to 5.6 percent, from 3.8. See Briefly Noted.
Netanyahu told the army yesterday what the Iran war is for, and it goes a good deal further than the plan on the table with Washington. Whoever's sworn in next inherits the order and the gap between the two. Up the road from Kiryat Shmona, nobody's waiting for the result either. Tel-Hai opened this week as Israel's eleventh research university.
The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.
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This week's Watchwords
Before dawn on Monday, Israeli police and the Shin Bet arrested ten suspects over the weekend's attacks, two of them for the one at Taybeh, a Christian village in Judea and Samaria, where masked men chased Belgian, French, and Polish diplomats out of an olive harvest on Saturday. Belgium's foreign minister, Maxime Prevot, had already said on Saturday that he'd press for European Union sanctions on "those responsible for this violence and those who support them." With suspects in custody, it's the second half of his sentence that has work left to do, and it reaches Israelis who weren't anywhere near Taybeh.
Belgium's foreign minister wants European Union sanctions over the attack on European diplomats in Judea and Samaria last weekend, and he wants them to reach well past the men who did it. On Friday, masked Israeli rioters came down into an olive harvest at Abu Falah, a Palestinian village northeast of Ramallah, and beat Heidi Levine, a Washington Post photographer wearing a vest marked press. On Saturday, masked men with clubs chased diplomats from Belgium, France, and Poland out of a harvest at Taybeh, a Christian village nearby, smashed a window of the Belgian consular car, and knocked down a French mayor. Maxime Prevot, Belgium's foreign minister, said his government will press for EU sanctions "against those responsible for this violence and those who support them," and blamed Israel's "illegal settlement policy." Israel went after the men. Before dawn on Monday, police and the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, arrested ten men, two of them for Taybeh and four for the attack on Levine, and a court kept all six in custody through Wednesday. Mike Huckabee, America's ambassador, called the attack on Levine "a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards." Attacks by Israeli civilians that survive verification come to about a hundred and ten a year. Attacks on Israelis run into the thousands. And Defense Minister Israel Katz wants the rioters made wholly a police job, from prevention through prosecution. "Those who support them" is wide enough to take in councils, communities, and ministers. Prevot's ask is that the suspects Israel already has in custody stand in as proof that the state sent them.
Below the line: the week's deployable language — what to say when the reporter asks, how to answer the donor worry, the claims you'll field, and the traps that lose the room. Members read the full brief.
Also from Mitzpe:
The Morning After the Vote · Israel Brief
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