Most of the day's arguments are about who gets blamed, and some of them are being settled before anything's happened. Israelis have been having that fight over October 7 since the morning after, and it still hasn't found anyone with the standing to end it. Abroad, the charges keep reaching further back.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Iran: Netanyahu reportedly asks Washington to hold off on Iran until after the vote, and Katz seeks home-front powers past it. See The War Today.
Shipping: Iran sinks two more ships, and Central Command destroys a Guards-linked dhow caught targeting US Navy ships. See The War Today.
Lebanon: Katz says Hezbollah loses Nabatieh and the Litani area for good if it joins an Iranian attack. See The War Today.
Gaza: Gaza's merchants strike over Hamas's cash levy on every truck, cutting roughly 300 trucks a day. See Briefly Noted.
October 7: Ronen Bar sues Netanyahu for libel, and Kan reports the Egyptian jet tied to Kamel carried businessmen. See Inside Israel.
Bnei Brak: Haredi rioters break into an office building where haredi soldiers serve, and police arrest two. See Inside Israel.
Qatargate: In testimony aired last night, Netanyahu aide Yonatan Urich admits at least two 2024 meetings with a top Qatari official. See Briefly Noted.
Colombia: Colombia opens its Jerusalem embassy, and its foreign minister quits the Hague Group at the reception. See Israel and the World.
Obama and Harris: Obama tells Belfast that Jews fleeing Europe "took land off people," and Harris goes further in Seoul. See Israel and the World.
Dublin: Irish Jewry's leader says a hotel there turned away an antisemitism forum after asking whether the IDF would be involved. See Israel and the World.
The IMF: The Fund now sees Israel's economy growing 4.5 percent this year, a full point above its April forecast. See Briefly Noted.
London: Britain can now sanction anyone building Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, days before E1's bids close. See Developments to Watch.
Where Jerusalem has an answer, it's putting its own version down first. Katz did it in south Lebanon yesterday, spelling out what Hezbollah loses before it's joined anything. People will still point at Israel. They'll just have to argue with something already on the record.
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
The Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize on Friday to Navi Pillay, the South African jurist who chaired the UN inquiry that accused Israel of genocide over the war in Gaza. Hours later Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court itself, the Hague tribunal holding a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest, and Britain, France, and Germany were among the allies who said they'd keep backing it. Between them, the prize and the sanctions turned the case against Israel into a choice between Trump and "the rule of law."
The Nobel committee in Oslo gave its Peace Prize on Friday to the woman who chaired the UN inquiry that accused Israel of "genocide," and Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court that afternoon. It picked Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist and a former judge of the court in The Hague. Her commission, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, made that accusation against Israel over the Gaza war last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned the court as an institution. "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," he said. The court has had a warrant out for Netanyahu since November 2024. Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands, with Denmark and Australia, answered within hours in a joint statement. They "regret and strongly disagree," and they'll "continue to work together to support the Court's vital work." Then one of Pillay's own commissioners, Chris Sidoti, told an audience at a Melbourne synagogue: "We are not a court. We are not even prosecutors." He conceded the panel never checked for itself the 83 percent civilian figure its finding leaned on. And Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur Washington has already sanctioned, wants the ICC prosecutor to investigate Israeli "government officials and media figures" for incitement. What they want conceded is a genocide charge treated as settled because it now has a peace prize on it, a warrant on Israel's prime minister that outlasts anything Washington does, and Israeli journalists next in line.
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.
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