Israel Brief: Sunday, July 19
The Iran war takes American lives with Israel kept out of it, as the coalition rewires its referees and dissolves into the October campaign.
The war has drawn American blood — two US service members killed by an Iranian missile in Jordan, on the eighth night of the American air campaign. The regime answered by spending what reach it has left onto Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Kurdish ground it does not own and pricing a strait it cannot hold. And the one state the whole war orbits sits benched, forbidden to fire a shot while Washington stages its next round of tankers on Israeli runways and tells Jerusalem to stand down.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Iran: Iran kills two US soldiers in Jordan and fires Gulf-wide as American strikes reach an eighth night; Israel stays benched. See The War Today.
Lebanon: The Lebanese army enters the first pilot zone as a Hezbollah roadside charge kills one of its own soldiers inside it. See The War Today.
Gaza: The IDF kills the Hamas commander who held Israeli hostages and filmed the staged releases, in Khan Younis. See The War Today.
Haredi draft: A nine-justice panel takes the yeshiva arrest-freeze on July 28 as a Bnei Brak mob attacks Tax Authority inspectors. See Inside Israel.
Dissolution: The Knesset dissolves 62-0 for an October 27 election after rewriting the attorney general, broadcast, and kashrut rules. See Inside Israel.
AIPAC: AIPAC delists fifteen House Democrats it endorsed after they voted to strip Israel's military aid. See Israel and the World.
Recognition: Colombia and Slovenia reverse their Palestinian recognition and move to open embassies in Jerusalem. See Israel and the World.
Flotilla: Sa'ar shows sixty ministers captured files tying the Sumud flotilla to Hamas. See Israel and the World.
Diaspora: Assaults on Jews from Mongolia to Montenegro track no Gaza headline, only the Hebrew the victims were speaking. See Israel and the World.
Tisha B'Av: Temple Mount groups vow to reach the gates for the fast eve even if police bar Jewish entry. See Developments to Watch.
Abroad, the war crosses into American casualties while the actual disarming — of Hezbollah in the pilot zone, of Hamas west of the Yellow Line — goes on the only way it ever does, one charge and one target folder at a time. At home, a coalition that spent its last week of full power rewiring its own referees turns to face a campaign it enters short of a majority. And in the chancelleries and the diaspora both, the sort continues: the ties that hold are the ones built on conviction, and the assault on the Jew has stopped bothering to cite a reason.
Today: American deaths in a war Israel is barred from fighting, embassies swinging back to Jerusalem, and assaults on Jews that no longer pretends they need a pretext.