"If Trump breathes, he lies!"
— Aure

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel DID NOT agree to the US-backed plan for Gaza.
#AureFreePress #News #Israel #gaza #BreakingNews

Looking at the Israeli polling data, it looks like Eisenkot has a decent chance. It's not a sure thing by any means, but it's a decent chance. Of course nothing is a sure thing and as long as neither party wins a majority (which seems unlikely), either would need a coalition government.

Eisenkot is a right winger and his policies aren't radically different than Netanyahu's, but under an Eisenkot government there would be some true opportunities:

1. Not beholden to the far right. - Much of what we see out of Israel in terms of extreme statements and policies come not even out of Likud, but the extreme right wing parties. Under Eisenkot, this would not be the case.

2. Not Netanyahu - This alone could help Israel internationally. Even if the
I'm hopeful that with Eisenkot that Israel will have a few chances to heal its international image, albeit slowly.

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#Israel #IlPol #Netanyahu #Eisenkot

#usa #israel #iran : #warofaggression / #usmilitary / #dronebase / #protest / #nonviolentresistance / #codepink / #veteransforpeace / #nevadadesertexperience / #catholicworker

„Call On U.S. Military To “Stand Down” And “Refuse Illegal Orders.”
July 30 Day of Action called for by ShutDownDroneWarfare.org and BanKillerDrones.org.“

https://popularresistance.org/action-for-peace-with-iran-simultaneous-rallies-at-four-us-drone-bases/

Alt...

<text> Action for Peace with Iran: Rallies at four US Drone Bases

#israel #palestine : #westbank / #finance / #banks

(Softly killing.)

„Two Israeli financial firms have long served as partners to Palestinian banks, handling transactions that make possible the West Bank’s imports and exports.“

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/world/middleeast/israeli-banks-palestinian-economy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z1A.J2Yd.V4TGbtiJq90L&smid=nytcore-ios-share

An eye-opening, powerful piece of #journalism, #truth, from PBS News Hour

> Netanyahu government defies court, raising constitutional crisis fears as election nears

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/netanyahu-government-defies-court-raising-constitutional-crisis-fears-as-election-nears

Very familiar sounding, but #Israel, not the #GQP /#TrumpVirus assault on #law & #Constitution

Bibi & Donny share near-identical strategy - suppressing #media & unilaterally undermining #democracy.

Imposing #censorship & #retribution for reporting #facts.

This story, IMHO, is a blast of fresh air.

Today we had primary elections for the list at the Israeli Democracts party and an hour ago we got the results (so far the basic list only).

Names are probably going to be meaningless to an international audience. I'll just note that my shorter list included some 30 of the 51 candidates (I had to vote for only 8) and that I'm happy with what we got.

#HaDemocratim #israel #elections

Israel advances plan to build Palestinian detention facility surrounded by crocodiles.
#AureFreePress #News #Israel

The current government of Israel has been on a multi-year mission to destroy the various government run media outlets in Israel that operate independently, similarly to how the BBC operates under the UK, or the CBC operates in Canada.

The Supreme Court came down on this issue and the Israeli government has simply ignored this, triggering a de-facto constitutional crisis.

(I say de-facto because Israel doesn't have an actual constitution).

https://www.ft.com/content/20450f5c-757f-440d-a06e-6fa997f74754

#Israel

#israel : #government / #domesticpolicy / #justice / #democracy

(The only democracy…)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-court-netanyahu-clash.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vlA.5suL.KiujEEvdG9vx&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Elections in Israel are nationwide and proportional representation - parties present their list of candidates and each voter may elect a single party (technically it's a list, which is a combination of parties, but never mind that). And no registration is required.

Up until the 1970s, party leaders chose those lists of candidates through committees - "the elders of the party". In 1977 the #Likkud started electing people in party conferences. A while later other parties followed suit. In 1991 the Labor decided to use an even wider body: primary elections. In both cases the new format helped the party win the elections as the older method seemed corrupt.

Primary elections became the norm. Then Tommy Lapid (the father of Yair Lapid) became disenchanted with that idea after it helped kicking hime out of "his" Shinuy party in 2006 in an ugly way. This prompted Yair Lapid to avoid it altogether. Yair Lapid created his own new party in 2012 (Yesh Atid), with himself as the big party boss. And from that point, new parties tended to be "owned" by the figure that headed the party and called the shots.

In previous elections only Labor and Meretz (sort of) on the left and Likkud on the right stuck to holding primary elections. Meretz and Labor merged to forming The Democrats that will hold the primary elections for the list in July 20th.

The primary elections in the Likkud have an aura of corruption around them: workers in various large companies are "strongly encouraged" to join the party. Likewise various political movements, notably from the religious far right (often people who actually don't vote Likkud) will join the party to vote in the primary elections.

On the other hand, primary elections remain a useful channel to keep party leadership accountable to local activists. E.g. recently farmers (including ones supported by Likkud) managed to thwart a suggested milk reform (That was probably badly designed anyway).

However, Netanyahu is not so fond of those primary elections, as it means that there are people noot directly depending on him, and currently trying to select less list members in primary elections.

That is certainly not the case with the Democrats.

I'll note that there was at least one more small party that selected its list through what is described as primary elections: the Reservists (Miluimnikim), that currently fail to pass the voting threshold in polls.

#PrimaryElections #ilpol

Today we marked the 1000th day since Oct 10th 2023. Organizers dubbed it as 7.10000 (following the date 7.10 that we all remember). Because the war that started at that day never ended.

In the morning there were protests in various junctions all over the country. In the evening there was a central rally in Tel Aviv.

#Israel #oct7

Eisenkot is the leader of one of the opposition parties that will run in the upcoming October 2026 general elections in Israel. According to recent polls, his party will likely lead the block of opposition parties and he has a good chance of becoming the next Israeli prime minister.

He had a long military career and eventually served as the chief of staff on 2015-2018. Later has been in the Knesset (parliament) since 2022.

As you can see in his biography, he was born in the city of Tiberias to parents who immigrated from Morocco. That would mark him as Sefaradi. But the "Eisen" prefix sounds German and hence Ashkenazi. Around 2015, as he became the chief of staff, this appeared to be an oddity, and people looked into it.

They quickly realized that the name may appear German, but is not really, and such a name is not documented. However, the name Azankot, that seems to be of Berber origin, is documented for Jews in Morocco since the 17th century. At some point someone mis-transcribed the name.

So around 2015 there are multiple stories about that. A harmless anecdote.

And we get to the present times. Netanyahu is a populist leader. That is, also claims to be leader of the people. For various reasons, Sepharadi people (roughly half of the Jewish population) vote more to the Right. But Netanyahu's party, Likkud, has always been under the leadership of Ashkenazy people. And yet, they somehow keep trying to use this as an issue.

So lately we see both Netanyahu's propaganda raising the following two points: that Netanyahu is of partial Moroccan decent (with no basis whatsoever), and that Eisenkot (due to the name) is not really a Moroccan.

Note: This is obviously something that should not have mattered. Eisenkot does not make that identity a campaign topic. But it's interesting to see what issues the propaganda of Netanyahu chooses to pick on.

#israel #Eisenkut #GadiEizenkut #ilpol #netanyahu #propaganda

Hezbollah rejects Israel-Lebanon agreement as Israeli weekend attacks hit southern Lebanon

There are fatalities.
#AureFreePress #News #Israel #Lebanon #BreakingNews
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/27/hezbollah-rejects-israel-lebanon-agreement-as-israeli-attacks-hit-south

#usa #israel #lebanon : #negotiations / #hezbollah / #disarmament / #tensions

(Civil war in Lebanon? Smiling faces in Israel's war cabinet.)

»The US-Israel-Lebanon trilateral framework unveiled on Saturday … calls for the complete & verified disarmament of all "non-state armed groups" across Lebanon as part of a roadmap towards ending decades of conflict, but Hezbollah swiftly rejected the agreement, warning that attempts to enforce it could trigger "civil war."«

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/what-is-the-us-israel-lebanon-deal-hezbollah-warns-of-civil-war-over-disarmament-of-non-state-armed-groups/articleshow/132027257.cms

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#israel #palestine : #westbank / #agreement / #provocation

(Ready for annexation.)

„Under the agreement, 80 percent of the city is under Palestinian control, and 20 percent – home to a small community of 800 Jewish settlers, alongside some 40,000 Palestinians – under Israeli rule. Planning and building powers in Hebron were transferred from the Palestinian municipality to Israel.“

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-06-16/ty-article/.premium/foreign-ministry-refutes-smotrichs-canceling-hebron-agreement-statement/0000019e-d06c-de6a-a79f-fd6de3640000

@DaveRussell

You're mixing up quite a lot here, and so the answer may not be that you've lost your mind, but are not correctly informed.

Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that has control over part of Southern Lebanon. It's not part of the government of Lebanon, and in fact is opposed to the Lebanese government. It's a bit like Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Lebanon is not at war with Israel, but Hezbollah is, and it's funded, trained and supported by Iran.

The UN promised a defensive force to keep Hezbollah in check in Southern Lebanon, but has never implemented it, and in the meantime Hezbollah has attacked Israel with thousands of rockets.

Israel has made no land claims against Lebanon. This is an attack against Hezbollah, which now does include land troops, but there's no annexation discussion. Israel is demanding a DMZ as promised but not fulfilled by the UN.

#Israel #Lebanon #Hezbollah

RE: https://social.tchncs.de/@NiceBastard/116555135047588638

Uri Avnery used to say that the fact that people in #israel were obsessed with #eurovision while having zero interest in #AsianGames showed how deep down Israelis saw themselves as Europeans colonizing an exotic and dangerous place (just like #EhudBarak once called Israel "a villa in the jungle").
I wish the #ICJ was half as popular with those "Europhiles"

#israel #lebanon : #militaryinvasion / #truce / #lowintensitywarfare

„ #Displacement and #destruction continues as ceasefire fails to cease firing.“

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/05/05/israel-confirms-500-strikes-against-lebanon-since-ceasefire-went-into-effect/

#israel #palestine : #gaza / #genocide / #truce / #conquest / #idf / #yellowline / #report / #dangerofescalation / #uspeaceplan

„Israel has expanded its control of the Gaza Strip to nearly 60% of the territory despite the ceasefire, as it prepares for a possible #resumption of the war, Army Radio reported on Sunday.
Senior military officials, cited by the broadcaster, said they are pressing to restart fighting, arguing that now is the optimal moment to defeat Hamas.“

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-seizes-nearly-60-percent-gaza-despite-ceasefire-plans-resume-genocide

Someone posted a such a nonsense "theory" about how come there are no new cemeteries in the US (spoiler: this is wrong). So in the short discussion they raised some points:

Land used by cemeteries needs to be close to cities, and therefore is expensive, as it replaces buildings. Therefore, cemeteries have been using the same land more efficiently: use parts that were previously unused, bury more people in the same space, and such. And of course: cremation greatly reduces the space requirements.

And this is why there are way fewer new cemeteries built in the US.

The points above are the ones raised in the show, that I'm just repeating. I'm not as familiar with what's happening in the US. I do know what's happening in Israel. Because it gives an interesting perspective.

In Israel cemeteries are run by non-profits, almost all of them are run by religious institutions. The Jewish ones are called חברא קדישא (Hevra Kadish, literally, "a holy soceity"). Each such non-profit maintains the cemetery. It is funded by payments people pay for new burials. But they have to keep maintaining the cemetery for eternity.

In practice cemeteries do fill up and new ones need to be built. This is a serious issue in the larger cities. Cremation is not socially acceptable by most people. It is also more expensive than other alternatives.

And the price matters here. Decent burial is considered a basic human right and therefore Social Security covers basic costs of burial. The cemetery non-profits still make money from selling pre-allocated plots (for those who want to buried next to their partner, or people who want to be buried near a holy guy).

Any form of more burial that has more graves per area, e.g.: a tower of graves, is way more expensive to maintain, and therefore costs more, even per single grave. Therefore those non-profits prefer to continue using the "good old" single-graves burial. And as it happens, some of them have quite some political power.

There is more to it, but suffice it to safe that land for graves is one of the long-term issues in Israel that will not be solved unless Someone does Something about it:
https://library.mevaker.gov.il/sites/DigitalLibrary/Documents/2024/2024.05/EN/2024-05-205-Burial-Taktzir-EN.pdf

[1] Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast: https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ . Besides the regular weekly podcast they also have a more casual weekly chat that they stream live on Youtube and also release to their RSS feed.

Sde Teiman detention camp was created shortly after the beginning of the war. A place was needed to detain the many new Palestinian prisoners. The civilian Prison Service wanted nothing to do with it. Sde Teiman is an existing military base near Be'er Sheva and the existing emergency military plan for a PoW camp was there. There was no plan for that many prisoners. The camp housed, at the time, several thousands of Palestinians. Some of them were Hamas people. Some weren't (this is where they were supposed to be interrogated, potentially).

While there were technically some plans for the camp, they were not prepared for the scale. And there were no trained prison guards. Therefore regular reserve soldiers were drafted to guard the camp, and a special unit, Unit 100, was created from volunteer reservists, to be the intervention force. They ended up more interacting with the prisoners.

There were rumors of misconduct in the camp, and military police didn't bother very much to investigate them. However, in some cases they had to: when a detainee ended up in hospital (which means that he couldn't be treated in the in-facility clinic) and doctors found signs of brutality, military police had to step in.

They already did this once in March 2024. And they we get to the events of April 2024 when another detainee ended up in hospital and an investigation was launched.

BTW: initially a sexual assault was suspected, but pretty soon the findings were re-examined and the allegations were changed to "merely" brutality. The MP investigators looked at video footage of the event and could clearly see that the event is hidden: the detainee was taken by 8 soldiers of Unit 100 who stood as a wall hiding the event from the camera. And afterwards he ended up badly injured.

So after a while the MPs came to investigate those soldiers. And at that point all hell broke loose. The soldiers did not want to go to jail. So they decided to overrule the MPs. Now don't get me wrong, soldiers overruling MPs by the way of brute force is a well honored military tradition, but not when done in plain sight.

In this case they called for all of their friends to come and help them. Not only for other soldiers in the base: everybody. Most of the people in Unit 100 happen to be settlers, and this is who they called. And thus not long afterwards there was a whole mob outside the gates of the base.

There was several politicians, including a (government) ministers and two members of parliament present. And they were heading the mob. Eventually the mob broke into the military base. Much so because the (civilian) police didn't do anything. Some of the MPs have managed to escape with detained soldiers, and a mob was waiting for them in their home base in Beit Lid (and again, the civilian police did nothing).

At this point a major outcry started in the right wing circles claiming that those poor soldiers did nothing and that they are being wrongly accused. Israel has already been heavily polarized, with an efficient propaganda machine that spreads lies of Netanyahu and co. and now that propaganda machine set its target on the (investigative) military police and the military prosecution, because it's obvious that that case is bollocks and why won't they release our heroes?

So at that point we finally get to Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi: the head of the Military Advocate General. She gets crisped by the right wing propaganda machine, including outright lies, merely for doing her job. And now she does her big mistake: she leaks the video footage. The footage shows the guards standing as a wall and hiding all the event from the camera. It is not a complete proof, but it shows that this was not "nothing happened".

It is stupid, because at that stage only the prosecution has that evidence, and therefore that leak can only come from a small set of people. And should could have released that footage in a simpler method: directly. she makes a further blunder by not admitting it was her.

Leaking the footage was a minor offense. The really bad thing she did was claiming to not have leaked it to various forums, including eventually to the (civilian) supreme court. This is something a high-ranking officer, let alone the Advocate General, must not do. When this was found, she was immediately forced to resign.

However, this is not the end of the story, because this affair lives on in the politically charged investigation to see who else knew (but I'll leave that one out).

All along, the minister and the MPs who broke into the base refuse to be interrogated regarding their part. People on the right try to shift the whole affair to be the issue of the military prosecution. And it's not. This case was very effective in deterring the military police and military prosecution from further probes into those fields.

Another thing to take from it is that people on our side are not always perfect, and that's OK. Tomer-Yerushalmi was right to press on the investigation. She was wrong in the way she leaked the video and later tried poorly to cover it up. But the fact that she was wrong, does not make our case wrong (and this likewise should apply on the other wise and to people we disagree with).

#Israel #Sde_Teiman

The stated goal of the Israeli government is a "complete victory over Hamas" using military power. And to release the Israeli hostages. Hamas basically tries to survive.

There are currently 58 hostages (not all alive) held by Hamas in the #Gaza Strip. Specifically, for all we know, they are probably mostly in an area in the center of the Strip. The IDF thus avoided and ground assaults into those areas, leaving them as generally safe areas for Hamas.

Therefore in the last year or so, Israel has not been getting much closer to defeating Hamas by military force. Those goals are very clearly conflicting.

And then again, people call for a "deal" to release all hostages. And ignore the fact that Hamas has just about no interest in doing so. Those hostages are all that keep Hamas afloat (That said, I hope to be wrong on that).

So basically for over a year we have a stalemate between the Israeli government and Hamas. Hamas won't release hostages. The Israeli government won't consider alternatives. And people of Gaza bear the consequences.

But it's not good enough to be a naysayer and just complain that things are broken. It also helps if you know where you're heading. The current government is actually very bad at this and there's not enough public debate at what we should do going forward. Steering the public debate our way is quite useful.

Furthermore, being optimistic is important. If you're busy fighting a big machine all day, you need reasons to be optimistic. Granted, those should not be of the unrealistic and fanatic type. And this is another useful reason.

(Note: written from my alternative account that does not have a limit on the number of characters per message)

#Israel

A picture I took yesterday at a demonstration in #Jerusalem:
https://tooot.im/deck/@tzafrir/114455460519068781

The text in Hebrew is a pun: הקטאר הטרויאני: the second word is the adjective "Trojan". The first word, קטאר, means Qatar. But sounds like the related word קטר: locomotive[*]. The colors are those of the Qatari flag. The silhouette is that of Prime Minister #Netanyahu.

Later on there were two actors, one with a fact mask of Netayahu and another dressed as a "Qatari Emir". I wrote before about this local #Qatargate:
https://cohens.org.il/social/tzafrir/p/1743448078.070798

Protesters are upset that while Qatar is considered to be a patron of #Hamas and generally of quite a few extreme Islamist groups, the Israeli government chooses it as a partner all too often.

[*] A bit of etymology: the word stems for an ancient word that is related to steam. As it happens, the the Arabic word for "train" is similar: قطار, vs. the name of the country that is قطر. It seems both words were coined in the era of steam trains.

So what did Netanyahu do in the face of a wave of protests: start a war. launched an attack on the #Gaza Strip. And later launched attacks on #Lebanon and intensified attacks on #Syria.

It did help to partially quell the protests. It did somewhat break their momentum and they failed to create a general strike or something close to it.

Note: this is certainly not the single goal of the recent attacks. It is also an excuse for some parts of the government of the more lunatic nature (BTW: Katz is not lunatic by nature. He just follows Netanyahu's orders to cooperate with the lunatics).

#Israel

Netanyahu is known for not caring about hiring people with lax morality (e.g.: Natan Eshel) and even criminal behavior (e.g.: Ari Harow). The crux of this affair is that some of his closest aids also ran a side gig, and in their side gig (among other jobs) did some PR work for Qatar. A country Netanyahu himself occasionally considered an enemy.

And then we get the separate issue of Eli Feldstein. He was investigated on a different affair. And then it turned out that he could not get a government job because he failed to pass a security clearance. Netanyahu still wanted to hire him. So he looked for someone else to pay his salary. And that someone ended up being a lobbyist for Qatar in the US government.

There is also another document mentioned, that is very likely faked: I'm not going to elaborate on them, but they were republished by Memri after being published by some dodgy French sources.

So far the main issue for Netanyahu is potential financial misconduct (which could potentially amount to allegations of bribe). The real problem is that Netanyahu not only did not help the investigations: he immediately tried to fire the head of the secret service (who was running it, because the police are a bit lax nowadays). So basically he behaves as if he has something to hide.

#Israel