Israel Brief: Monday, August 17
Iran comes out of the sixty-day memorandum with the Revolutionary Guards over the regular army and a bounty on any American soldier.
The sixty-day window ran out at midnight, Tehran spent it putting the Revolutionary Guards over the regular army and the men who fought Iraq back into the senior chairs, and Washington's answer this morning was that it is in no hurry. Iran and Oman have settled a map for moving ships through Hormuz, and the president who wants that water open says he will bomb Oman if it gets in the way. Israel holds the surface of the Ali al-Taher ridge and is preparing for several days of fighting over what Hezbollah spent fourteen years building underneath it.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Iran: The sixty-day memorandum expires with no deal, and Tehran comes out of it with the Guards over the army. See The War Today.
Hormuz: Iran and Oman agree a transit map, and Trump says he will bomb Oman if it gets in the way. See The War Today.
Lebanon: Israel prepares for days of fighting on the Ali al-Taher ridge and kills two Hezbollah commanders. See The War Today.
Gaza: Kushner tells Hamas there is nothing to negotiate about disarmament, then asks Israel to start the pullback. See The War Today.
Likud: Some 140,000 members vote today on the slate the party takes into the 27 October election. See Inside Israel.
Temple Mount: Jewish men pray from siddurim on the Mount for the first time. See Inside Israel.
Reservists: A reservist takes his own life two weeks after a platoon retreat that volunteers, not the state, ran. See Inside Israel.
Mecca pact: Trump congratulates a defense agreement three governments built because they have stopped counting on Washington. See Israel and the World.
Seoul: Trump cuts the annual Korean exercise after South Korea declines to join the Iran war. See Israel and the World.
Florida: Tomorrow's Republican primary in the sixth district carries a candidate running on his opponent being Jewish. See Israel and the World.
Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are each on the other side of a negotiation, and each of them used the interval to build. Sixty days for Iran, fourteen years of tunnel under Ali al-Taher, ten months of Gaza ceasefire with no weapon handed over. What Washington is asking for in all three is a slower Israel, and what it offers back is a verification nobody has yet had to deliver. And 140,000 Likud members spend today picking who carries that argument into the next Knesset.
Today: what Iran built inside the sixty days, the ridge Israel now has to go under, and the fabricated quote that reached Netanyahu's podium.
The Jewish State — Mitzpe's eight-session live course on Israeli history from the Mandate to October 7, taught the way the brief reads. Cohort 1: eight Sundays from Oct 11. mitzpe.org/the-jewish-state