Due to the Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur break, there was no brief for the past two weeks. This edition covers the whole fortnight, 8 September to this morning. It runs rather long (because the fortnight did).
Gmar tov.
— Uri
Most of the pressure on Israel right now runs on claims whose underlying object nobody will hand over — a phone call, a targeting figure, a majority in the Knesset. Israel has spent real effort contesting every one of them and bought back very little. A denial never travels as fast as the thing it denies. Meanwhile the army has been doing work that leaves physical evidence behind it, and none of that is in dispute.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Bab al-Mandab: The Houthis take Yemen's whole Red Sea coast, and Trump calls off his own Saudi strike twice. See The War Today.
Ali al-Taher: Israel sets off 1,100 tons under Hezbollah's Badr command complex and keeps the ground it cleared. See The War Today.
Binyamin and Gaza: A Hamas gunman murders a father of six near Neve Tzuf, and Israel kills three brigade commanders. See The War Today.
Haaretz: Netanyahu sues over a book's claim that bin Zayed warned him, and no log shows the call. See Inside Israel.
The lists: Thirty-eight slates are in for 27 October, and no bloc reaches 61 outside Channel 14. See Inside Israel.
The draft: Military Police take more than 60 evaders at the crossings, most at Ben Gurion bound for Uman. See Inside Israel.
London: Israel closes Britain's Jerusalem consulate, and three of the twelve signatories qualify their trade ban away. See Israel and the World.
Washington: Vance says Middle East policy cannot be subservient to Israel, and two Democrats hold $2.8 billion of bombs. See Israel and the World.
Belleville: A gunman opens fire on Kol Nidre in Ontario, and the constable the shul asked for stops him. See Israel and the World.
Venice: NAZA takes the Special Jury Prize, and the IDF denies the approval figure the film is sold on. See Israel and the World.
Vienna: The IAEA board reports Iran to the Security Council, its first referral in twenty years. See Briefly Noted.
Iran's airlines: Every Iranian carrier stops flying internationally tomorrow, and any airport that services one loses the dollar. See Developments to Watch.
The distance between a claim and the object behind it is the shape of almost everything moving right now. Governments sign statements their own law has not caught up to, a film rests on a figure whose source will not be produced, and both blocs count a majority the arithmetic will not give them. None of it slows down for being unsupported. Physical work is the one thing that cannot be claimed into existence, which is why the ground is where the record is clearest.
Today: a trade coalition that thinned in a day, an election neither bloc can win, and a Venice prize Israel calls a blood libel.