Israel Brief: Tuesday, August 4
The Board of Peace rewrites its withdrawal terms after Netanyahu says no. The deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz waits on the Revolutionary Guards.
Boker tov, friends. Apologies for the absence of the Israel Brief yesterday, I had a migraine that took me out of commission. Here’s today’s — and this month’s Vantage will come out in just a few hours. Thanks for your patience.
— Uri
The Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza came to Jerusalem to buy fourteen days of quiet and published Israel's sequence instead — decommissioning first, the line after. In the Gulf, Qatar told Trump that Iran had agreed to open Hormuz, and the men who keep it shut have not said so themselves. Neither of those is where Israelis spent the last two days looking: the defense minister said he'd replace the Central Command chief during a talk show appearance. The army refused, and the chief of staff froze every general-officer appointment until the next government takes its seat.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Gaza: Netanyahu refuses a fourteen-day halt, and the Board of Peace rewrites its own text to put decommissioning first. See The War Today.
Iran: Revolutionary Guards drone an American base in Kuwait, and CENTCOM has now redirected forty-four commercial ships off Hormuz. See The War Today.
Lebanon: Israel and Lebanon open a round in Rome, and Hezbollah's leader calls the table a humiliation for Beirut. See The War Today.
Central Command: Katz reveals Bluth's replacement on Channel 14 — though the army refuses to comply, and Zamir freezes general-officer appointments until after the elections. See Inside Israel.
Haredi draft: The army counts 4,298 haredi enlistments this year, and Netanyahu says his coalition's arrest-exemption law failed. See Inside Israel.
Hormuz: Qatar told Trump that Iran had agreed to open the strait, and Oman wants the Revolutionary Guards to say so themselves. See Israel and the World.
Montreal: Three antisemitic incidents in thirty-six hours, and Israel's and America's ambassadors both tell Ottawa (again) to protect Canadian Jews. See Israel and the World.
New York: Twenty-three of the city's thirty-three confirmed hate crimes last month targeted Jews, and Justice answers with a fifteen-city tour. See Israel and the World.
Ramallah: Sotomayor leaves a $655 million terror judgment standing, and the plaintiffs mean to collect from Israel's clearance transfers. See Israel and the World.
The 4,298 haredi men who enlisted this draft year came in under pressure from arrests and sanctions aimed at individuals (which is the enforcement the coalition tried to relieve) — and the prime minister now says the law it passed didn't work. A UNICEF-led survey of Gaza's children came back under one percent on the indicator the famine threshold actually considers (more than a year after that declaration went into court filings and trade statutes nobody is reopening).
Today: the Board of Peace rewriting Gaza's withdrawal sequence, a Hormuz deal Washington isn't in, and a general Katz replaced for a day.
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