Israel Update

The ever more explicit attempts by the Democrats to remove Netanyahu from office repeatedly fail. There's a reason for that. Israelis don't like to feel that their bigger stronger ally is trying to dictate to them who will govern their country. They are even less hospitable to the idea that the US will try to force them into the two-state solution track. But Mike thinks the ongoing effort to oust Netanyahu may actually succeed. Meanwhile, Herzi Halevi, the IDF chief of staff completes a controversial army-wide round of appointments. Many see this as an attempt to save his own skin, since the appointees seem to subscribe to the same group-think that got us October 7, and may therefore be less critical of Halevi's colossal failure on that fateful Shabbat. Check out all of Tablet’s podcasts at tabletmag.com/podcasts.

After discussing the growing tensions between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Gadi describes for Mike two research reports in Israel in which Palestinian officials brag about the numbers of their security personnel who participate in terror attacks against Israeli Jews. Still there are some veterans of Israel's security establishment who agree with the Biden administration's plan to hand Gaza over to a "reformed and revitalized" Palestinian Authority once the war ends. One such veteran is former Shin Bet (Shabak) chief Nadav Argaman, who recently said, "The Palestinian Authority is not a body that encourages terrorism." Gadi and Mike believe Argaman belongs to that segment of Israel's elite which, in sharp contrast to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sees getting along with Washington as more important than reflecting the will of the Israeli people, who overwhelmingly reject the Palestinian Authority as a partner for stabilizing Gaza.