This week's focus is a little blurry because the impact of what we believe to be the most significant event is completely different for Americans and Israelis. From an American perspective, Friday's New York Times headline article "How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power" offers a window into the question that has haunted Israelis for weeks and even months. The issue in Israel is not HOW, but rather "IF Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power". Regardless of the answer, the very question is the proverbial Elephant in the Room. If you haven't read New York Times article, we strongly recommend that you read it at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/magazine/benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-war.html.

From an Israeli perspective, the content isn't news at all. Bibi's response is the real story here - and the one that our readers can't see. Netanyahu's quick categorical denial only served to spotlight just how isolated he has become. Here in Israel, you can almost smell that elections are in the air even if we don't know when, who the main candidates and parties will be or even which issue will dominate the campaign. Will it be the hostages? Continued exemption of the Haredi community from military conscription? A backlash against corruption and mismanagement? Or will most Israelis continue to vote for the same parties led by people they don't trust (true across the entire electoral spectrum)?

In this issue we also discuss:

* The Dinah Project Report on Hamas’ Sexual Assaults

* The Rising Toll of Soldiers Killed in Gaza

* The plight of the Hostages and Hostage Negotiations

* Ask "Will 'Free Palestine' Antisemitism Succeed Where Joseph Goebbels Failed?" Spoiler alert - we don't have an answer.

This is the question to ask while following news reports this week about Israel, Gaza, Syria and the rest of the Middle East. It is clear to us (the editors of this newsletter) that Israel’s national interest demands bringing ALL of the hostages home in a deal that ends the war in Gaza. The price will be high and Hamas will continue to be a threat - but it is almost a certainty that Hamas will quickly give Israel a reason to respond and finish the job.

A partial deal like the one being discussed is NOT in Israel’s interest, even if it is better than no deal. It appears that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the one who has been insisting on partial deals in order to continue the war indefinitely, or at least until he thinks he can be reelected. President Trump on the other hand, appears to want to bring the Gaza war to an end. Like Biden, he cares more about the hostages than Netanyahu does. In other words, Trump’s is more in tune with Israel’s national interest than Netanyahu is.

Furthermore, unlike former President Biden, Trump has a short fuse (or works on a very short timeline) and Netanyahu’s political base does not want to anger Trump. This all means that it is possible that Trump can pressure Netanyahu into accepting a deal that is in Israel’s national interest, but not in Netanyahu’s political interest.

The articles in this issue all deal with different aspects of the hostage deal being discussed, especially regarding the hostages and the framework for delivery of humanitarian aid that will enter Gaza. The What Else Happened This Week section contains a few interesting events worth reading about.

After successfully assisting Israel destroy or at least seriously damage Iran’s nuclear facilities without getting bogged down in a foreign war, President Trump turned his fire on the State of Israel. His recent tweet (that he later repeated) calls for the State of Israel to end its corruption charges against the Prime Minister that led Israel to its greatest defeat against its weakest enemy ever!

Even though Prime Minister Netanyahu deserves credit for many of his decisions in the wars against Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, his dismantling of Israel’s judiciary and other national institutions has left Israel divided and weak.

• The October 7 massacre could not have happened if our Prime Ministered hadn’t systematically appointed military leaders unable or unwilling to respond to warning signs that were uncomfortable for their boss.

• The internal strife and chaos caused by the current coalition’s attempts to dismantle Israel’s judicial system under the guise of “Judicial Reform” opened the door for Hamas to attack.

• By systematically replacing the heads of all of Israel’s civil service and other national institutions with unqualified patronage appointments - Netanyahu condemned us to the total chaos and failure that occurred for months on end in the wake of the attack.

• Empowering putting messianic and racist extremists like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir in charge of the Treasury and the Police simply to hold onto power threaten to return Israel from a successful state with thriving democracy with a strong and stable OECD economy to a failed or struggling Third World government (where corruption is rampant or led by an all powerful despot) with a weak economy.

Saving Bibi from criminal prosecution does not help Israel - it helps destroy it! Rather than serving as an example of a vibrant democracy for neighboring countries (and the Palestinian Authority) to copy, Netanyahu has been trying to import the political culture of Abu Mazen where elections are delayed indefinitely.

Since your news sources are already covering the bombing of the nuclear weapons facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan by the United States, we’ve decided to focus on two important topics that you won’t find much information in U.S. news sources:

• The state of bomb shelters and safe rooms in Israel

• The loss of focus on the plight of the 53 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza

This week’s focus is followed by an analysis of the Democratic Party’s response to President Trump’s decision to bomb of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. We compare the response to that of Shimon Peres’ in the immediate aftermath of Menahem Begin’s success in 1981 when Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor in Iraq. Nearly 45 years later, the Labour party has failed to recover. Regardless of which party you prefer - the lack of a reasonable alternative is a serious problem.

This is followed by an explanation why Israel had to attack Iran. Note: we also recommend that you read Why Israel Had to Attack by Amos Yadlin that appeared in the New York Times yesterday.

On June 13, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a coordinated and highly targeted military operation against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and senior Revolutionary Guard figures. It was a strategic necessity, not a political whim. Iran has made no secret of its intentions toward Israel. Its leaders have repeatedly and publicly threatened to destroy the Jewish state. Meanwhile, it has continued to enrich uranium to levels approaching weapons-grade, in clear defiance of international norms and oversight.

Just days before the strike, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran was enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, a hair’s breadth from the 90 percent needed for a nuclear bomb. The report also stated that Iran had refused to cooperate with nuclear inspectors, hiding crucial details about its weapons program. Iran ignored repeated diplomatic efforts to return to the negotiating table and cease enrichment, including those made during the Trump administration. Instead, it escalated.

Given these developments, Israel had both the right and the obligation to act.

Waiting any longer would have risked waking up to a nuclear-armed Iran. The mission struck key nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow, and Arak, with the clear goal of setting back Iran’s nuclear timetable and deterring further escalation.

And yet, the timing of the operation is impossible to ignore. Just one day earlier, Netanyahu’s government survived a crucial domestic challenge. His coalition passed a deeply divisive bill to maintain draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men, despite widespread public resentment and national protests.

Both Shas and UTJ, sought to preserve long-standing exemptions from mandatory service enjoyed by the Haredi community, had threatened to back the dissolution bill over the enlistment issue, which would have left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without a majority needed to stay in power.

For many Israelis, this was a deeply cynical political deal. Netanyahu gave the religious parties what they wanted to hold his coalition together – no military service for now, no serious sanctions and the right to keep all the money he poured on them to get them into and keep them in the coalition.

Then, less than 24 hours later, came the most dramatic military strike Israel has launched in years.

The sudden pivot from internal political firestorm to global military engagement struck many observers as too perfect. This pattern isn’t new: Netanyahu has often shifted focus to national security at moments when his political survival was under threat.

Critics argue that the Iran strike served not only military objectives, but also political ones by resetting the domestic conversation and reframing Netanyahu as a wartime leader.

The Torah Scholars Council of the Agudat Israel branch of the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Torah Judaism party has instructed its parliament members to leave Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Agudat Israel is the Chassidic branch of the Torah Judaism party. The other branch, Degel HaTorah generally represent the Lithuanian branch of Ashkenazi Haredi Jews.

This comes after the current government has so far failed to pass a law that would exempt religious Yeshiva students from some military service, or offer a military service for very religious Jewish men. The leading rabbis who oversee the ultra-orthodox parties have complained that military service for religious men would pull them away from a religious life. Skeptics and opponents of the power that the ultra-religious parties have wielded over Israeli governments over the past decades. Both the Ashkenazi Torah Judaism Party, and the Mizrachi Shas party have applied pressure on governments to continue exempting men who study at Yeshivas from mandatory military service.

A recently recorded telephone conversation was released, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to convince a high ranking rabbi of from the Lithuanian branch of the Haredi community of his efforts to appease their political demands. He spoke on the phone with Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsh, a leading member of the Torah Leaders Council of the Degel Hatorah branch. In the recorded conversation, Netanyahu mentioned his tactics and plans to establish a special military program specifically for Heradi men who are not full-time Yeshiva students.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to appoint Major General David Zini to replace Ronen Bar as head of Israel’s General Security Services. Netanyahu has been seeking to fire Bar for several months over various political disputes. He has tentatively offered the post to Zini (behind the back of the Chief of Staff, no less); however, Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, and the High Court of Justice have rejected both the firing of the existing Security Services head and the appointment of his replacement.

The world is leaving Israel out in the cold, at least diplomatically, and the current Israeli government is more insular and distant than the State of Israel has been since its founding. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and with recent developments in the Middle East, the decision-making process has not included Israel, including decisions by Israel’s allies that affect Israel.

US president Donald Trump’s recent tour of Arab monarchies around the Persian Gulf has give Israel a rude awakening of its limited influence and ability to affect political decisions in the region. Even Israel’s strongest ally in the world can bypass the Israeli government, the personal egos of its leaders, and even its national and security interests, for a bit of political expedience. Trump succeeded in convincing the Emir of Qatar to pressure Hamas to release one hostage it was holding, Israeli soldier and US citizen Edan Alexander, without negotiating a ceasefire or prisoner exchange. This concession from both Qatar and Hamas was done with no official Israeli participation. Israel was completely kept out of the decision process.

Israel woke up, or rather Israeli politicians and government officials woke up to another reality check that they were all unprepared for the decisions of other influential parties in the region, even to decisions by, again, Israel’s most powerful ally.

The news that Trump is fed up with Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is bittersweet. On the one hand, Bibi is actively harming Israel’s national interests in order to keep it in a perpetual state of war on multiple fronts rather than doing what is necessary to free the hostages and protect our borders. On the other hand, Trump’s decisions over the past week also harm Israel - not just Bibi.