A few thoughts on where Israel now stands re Syria:
In the last few months Israel was trying to use the drubbing it delivered Hizbullah in Lebanon to pressure Assad to leave the Iranian axis. It was trying to get Russia, US & Emiratis backing for this. Assad was non-committal > Up to a few days ago this remained Israel’s objective and hope was that rebel advances would pressure Assad to do so. But the pace of the rebel advances, the rapid collapse of the Syrian army and apparent abandonment of Assad by Iran and Russia leave Israel without a strategy >

https://twitter.com/anshelpfeffer/status/1865348910828359763

עד ממש לא מזמן הייתי בין אלה שחשבו (וגם כתבתי) שאין דרך לגייס מספרים משמעותיים של גברים חרדים בעתיד הנראה לעין ושילוב משמעותי שלהם בנשיאה בנטל הביטחון יבוא רק בתהליך של דור שיתחיל משילוב בשוק העבודה ובשינויים במערכת החינוך החרדית. טעיתי. נוצרה כעת הזדמנות היסטורית לגיוס משמעותי > 4 סיבות להיווצרות הזדמנות היסטורית לגיוס משמעותי של חרדים. 2 בציבור הכללי. 2 בציבור החרדי.
1. נוצר קונצנזוס נדיר מאוד בציבור הלא-חרדי שחוצה מחנות, ימין ומרכז, חילונים ודתיים, שלא רק תומך בזה ברמה העקרונית, אלא שרואה בזה עכשיו עדיפות לאומית עליונה. לכן חוק השתמטות לא יכול לעבור >

While we’re waiting for official confirmation Sinwar is dead before writing the obituary, worth noting there’s still a dispute in Israel’s intelligence community over whether he launched October 7 attack in the knowledge of what would come next. Did he willingly sacrifice Gaza? > There’s the view Sinwar didn’t believe the IDF would be prepared to go all the way into Gaza on the ground and ultimately after another “round” he would be able to negotiate a hostage agreement that would release 1000s of Palestinian prisoners and make him the undisputed leader >

So what happens now after Iran’s 2nd direct missile attack on Israel. One thing is certain. Unlike after April 14, this time Israel won’t “take the win” as Biden urged Netanyahu. This time Israel’s response will be devastating, including perhaps strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites > A lot has changed since the previous Iranian strike on April 14. Iran’s 3 strongest proxies, Hizbullah, Hamas and Houthis have all been heavily hit, greatly eroding their effectiveness as Iran’s insurance policy against an Israeli strike and creating a strategic opportunity >

Nasrallah’s assassination is such a mega event that it distracts a bit from what has taken place over the past 2 months - the complete decapitation of Hizbullah’s military leadership, beginning with the Fuad Shukr assassination on July 30. The plan was 18 years in the making > Since 2nd Lebanon War in which Israel tried and failed to kill Nasrallah and pretty much any other senior Hizbullah commander Israel’s intelligence services devoted major resources (at expense of Hamas target) penetrating Hizbullah’s networks and sabotaging its military build-up>

The efficacy of assassinating senior commanders has been debated for many years in Israel’s security establishment. The best argument against assassinations was that of Hizbullah chief Musawi in 1992. He was replaced by a young Nasrallah who proved much more dangerous. However > If Nasrallah is dead, and it’s still a big if, it will have a massive impact. In 32 years he has built up the organisation in his image, as well as establishing his status as the most central non-Iranian figure in proxies network, advising Supreme Leader Khamenei on strategy >

Netanyahu and his proxies trying to frame his desire to replace Defense Minister Gallant as a criticism of Gallant’s hesitation to launch an offensive up north. This is bogus as Netanyahu has always been the most hesitant. The real reasons as always with Netanyahu are political > The real reasons Netanyahu wants to fire Gallant
1. Gallant opposed him on giving WB powers to Smotrich and on the judicial overhaul and since the war has refused to back him against the generals
2. Gallant favors a hostage/ceasefire deal which jeopardizes the coalition >

For 3 days there has been a blizzard of conflicting leaks, briefings and statements from both Israel and Hamas. Now that Hamas are claiming to have agreed to the Egyptian proposal, we still don’t have clarity but we may be getting closer. Here are the remaining hurdles to a deal> 1. What has Hamas agreed to? Is it the original US-backed Egyptian (and Qatari) proposal which Israel agreed to tentatively? If not, how different is it? Netanyahu may try to claim it’s a different proposal but the Americans will be the one who will have to say if it is or isn’t>

Defense Minister Gallant’s announcement this evening he will only agree to pass a law on IDF draft with agreement of all the parties of the emergency coalition is the biggest political threat to Netanyahu since he returned to office. It creates an impossible situation for the PM> The government has only weeks to pass a law regulating the exemption of yeshiva students from the draft. If they don’t table a law, the Supreme Court will force the Defense Ministry to start drafting them. But there’s no way Benny Gantz can agree the blanket exemptions remain >

What’s happening in the last two days is Netanyahu consciously squandering what little international support Israel has (mainly from the US) to continue the war against Hamas in a vain attempt to save his own political career by picking a fight with Biden> haaretz.com/israel-news/20… This is the 3rd time Netanyahu has tried to leverage a dispute with a US president for domestic political gain. He tried it with both Clinton and Obama. (He didn’t dare do it with Trump). It worked with Obama and failed with Clinton > haaretz.com/israel-news/20…

I find it hard to get excited over the hypocrisy of the university presidents. Maybe because I’m not American, never spent a day in university and don’t have higher expectations from educated people. But above all, I don’t think this has anything to do with the Israel-Hamas war > There’s a crisis in western intelligentsia where ideas have become fashionable instead of profound, morals have become relative and too much value has been ascribed to words and it manifests itself in 1000s of issues in hypocrisy and a weakness in the face of right-wing populism>

A senior Israeli doctor, not military, just someone dedicated to healing people, called me and asked “why isn’t anyone reporting that a group of Israeli hospital directors offered to send in their own doctors to take all the premature babies from Shifa for treatment in Israel?” > There are 3 reasons why. First, whoever is calling the shots in Shifa, I’ve no idea who that is, turned them down. I’ll leave you to speculate why they prefer to keep the babies in Shifa and are now planning to send them to much more distant and badly equipped hospitals in Egypt>

https://twitter.com/anshelpfeffer/status/1726337385376440537

I wrote this 6 weeks ago, 24 hours since the war started and I’ve been thinking about it since. What were Hamas thinking and will there be a point that whoever is left of its leadership admits it made a massive strategic mistake? Or will they forever see October 7 as a victory? >

https://twitter.com/anshelpfeffer/status/1710861419288150206

Put aside a moment your personal opinion of Israel’s response, whether you think its fully justified, flawed or downright evil. The result is now that Gaza City is in ruins and 1.5m Gazans have been displaced. And it was entirely predictable. Was Hamas predicting this? >

I don’t think I’ve ever signed an open letter or petition before. I don’t see it as my role as a journalist. When I was initially asked to sign a week ago my automatic response was “I agree with every word but I don’t sign open letters.” And to be honest > chronicle.com/blogs/letters/… A week ago, I was too busy reporting and writing. I didn’t fully realize or feel what those who originally drafted and signed the letter were feeling. It took another week for it to catch up with me. That there were people out there who we had regarded as friends and colleagues >

Netanyahu and sources within the defense establishment are briefing against each other. Netanyahu has been doing it for 2 weeks already, trying to place the sole blame on the IDF and Shin Bet for Hamas’ surprise attac. In the last 2 days he’s sending, through proxies, a new line> Netanyahu’s new line attack on the generals (thru proxies) is that they don’t care enough for the lives of their soldiers and they’re prepared to send them into Gaza before the air-force has used bunker-busting bombs to destroy Hamas tunnels there. Now there’s counter-briefing >

One very important dynamic in Israel that could influence how the country goes to the war, is already worrying the government & will certainly have a huge impact once the war is over, is the protest movement now forming around the families of the (at least) 126 prisoners in Gaza> This isn’t entirely new. Families of Israeli POWs in the past mobilized public opinion to pressure the government into action, but they usually waited for months, even years, until they reached the conclusion that the government wasn’t doing enough and launched their campaigns>

24 hours after Hamas’ devastating attack on southern Israel. A few thoughts. Everyone is comparing this, with good reason to the strategic surprise Egypt and Syria sprang on Israel 50 years ago in the Yom Kippur War. Israel’s failure then was due to “the concept”> The Tom Kippur concept was that the Arab armies wouldn’t risk another large-scale war with Israel after being badly beaten in the 6-Day War. That concept collapsed then and this time around 3 concepts have collapsed >

I was in Tahrir and in Maidan. There are vibes of that tonight in Israel but I’d be wary of comparisons. First, on the plus-side, there has been no bloodshed in the any of the pro-democracy protests. Not even close to it. Second, Netanyahu isn’t on the brink of falling. Yet. > What has almost certainly fallen is the government’s judicial overhaul (though even that is still officially at least on track). That’s the aim of the protests. Though many of the protesters are talking of toppling Netanyahu. I don’t think the broader movement is aimed at that>

יש טרנד כעת של פרשני ימין שמתפלאים מזה שבנגביר וסמוטריץ עושים טעויות של חובבנים כי הם נתפסו לכאורה כ״קיצונים אבל חכמים״. אין מה להיות מופתעים. זה לא שהם טפשים. הם פשוט קיצונים ולכן לא מתאימים להנהיג במדינה שמנהיגיה, מכל מפלגה, הנהיגו מהמרכז. רק כך אפשר להנהיג במדינה סבוכה כישראל> יש שני מיתוסים שהימין לא מסוגל להשתחרר מהם. הראשון הוא ש״השמאל״ פעם שלט כאן, כשבפועל אין באמת שמאל בישראל. השני ש״הימין מעולם לא באמצ שלט״. בפועל ראשי ממשלה מכל המפלגות שלטו מהמרכז, תמיד, רק כך ישראל יכלה לשרוד ולשגשג. מה שרואים עכשיו בפעם הראשונה זה הכשל של קיצונים בעמדות שלטון>

Nearly all the reserve pilots (37 out of 40) of the Israeli Air Force’s sole heavy-strike F-15I squadron have informed their commander that instead of showing up for reserve duty they’ll be protesting against the government. By ⁦@yanivkub⁩ @haaretz > haaretz.co.il/news/politics/… Large groups of reservists in many units have made similar statements. When it comes to a squadron that beyond its small core of full-time pilots relies on its cadre of reservists it impacts the IAF’s strategic readiness. Unprecedented political protest in Israeli military elite.

What’s happening tonight in Hawara in 2 tweets of leader of Samaria settlers council. 6 hours after 2 Israelis killed: “Here in Hawara the blood of our children has been shed… Hawara should be wiped out today… deterrence must be restored immediately, there’s no room for mercy”> And half an hour ago:
“The guys are acting now in Hawara exactly like guys who have 2 brothers butchered in cold blood in Hawara from point-blank. The thought that a Jew in Samaria is a diaspora Jew who will accept a stab in the heart politely is naive and childish”