Israel makes deals at its own front door. Past it, on the eve of October 7, it isn't making any.
Inside its own borders, Israel's been bargaining — with a crowd that turned out to stop an arrest, with a candidate the bench didn't want to rule on. Pointed outward, it isn't haggling with anybody. London is finding that out about a consulate, a documentary's makers are learning it too, and the army is hunting down the men who crossed the fence three years ago tomorrow, one at a time.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
- Gaza: Katz orders the last 2,000 October 7 invaders hunted down as the Shin Bet warns of a pre-election kidnapping. See The War Today.
- Bab al-Mandab: Yemeni government forces take the airfield on the strait's narrows, and Turkey and Pakistan pledge forces to Riyadh. See The War Today.
- The draft: Hundreds of haredi men pen Military Police in a Modi'in building until the police trade away the arrest. See Inside Israel.
- The ballot: The High Court restores Ra'am, the Joint List, and Cassif, and talks Balad into pulling Abu Shehadeh without a ruling. See Inside Israel.
- Due process: Zini asks to hold Jewish suspects without charge, while a lecturer who recruited nobody is charged in open court. See Inside Israel.
- London: Britain threatens to expel 27 Israeli diplomats if Sa'ar's order closing its Jerusalem consulate stands Thursday. See Israel and the World.
- NAZA: The IDF answers the film claim by claim, after a Times review that skipped everything Israelis had published against it. See Israel and the World.
- The anniversary protests: Israel maps 262 anti-Israel events worldwide, and the Met and New South Wales say they can't stop theirs. See Israel and the World.
- Somaliland: Hargeisa asks Israel, the one country that recognizes it, for air defenses against Turkey. See Briefly Noted.
- The radio gap: Police and the IDF still have no shared emergency radio — on October 7, an officer used WhatsApp. See Briefly Noted.
- Tehran: Pezeshkian nominates the man who ran Iran's missile industry to rebuild it as defense minister. See Developments to Watch.
Whatever a state gives up under pressure at home, it ends up teaching. A crowd that gets its man back once knows to come again, and Hamas is betting its rebuild on an Israeli government that settles. Facing outward, Jerusalem names a date and holds to it, and it puts its own name to a denial anyone can check. It could stand to bring that habit home.
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