Mitzpe Institute — Daily Brief

Israel Brief

Wednesday, October 21

Trump reportedly held Israel's Iran strike for the midterms, and back home the draft gets enforced wherever somebody actually turns up.

Shomrim's volunteers were on Clapton Common thirty seconds after the first call, and held the man until the Met turned up. The army's been running its own version for weeks, in Gaza and lately at the arrivals gate. Further from the scene it thins out into a statement, somebody else's jets, or a delegation sent to Tampa to ask Israel to stop, and Beirut's made a habit of that last one.


Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

  • Iran: Israel reportedly had a strike on Iran ready for 10 October, and Trump held it back for the midterms. See The War Today.
  • Lebanon: Katz says any shot or drone at an Israeli town now draws a heavy strike on Hezbollah's Dahiyeh. See The War Today.
  • Gaza: The IDF says it killed Tamer al-Zabaq, who helped abduct Shani Louk, and a senior Hamas security figure. See The War Today.
  • Winter: Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich ask Ofer Winter's rabbi to talk him out of the race, and Winter stays in. See Inside Israel.
  • The draft: The state is due to tell the High Court today that police arrested fourteen draft evaders since July and sent 143 home because the Military Police never came. See Briefly Noted.
  • Turkey: Barrack tells Doha that fighting Iran's militias isn't America's job, and Ankara sends its Saudi defense pact to parliament. See Israel and the World.
  • Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, calls Israel "not actually our friend" for the third time this month. See Israel and the World.
  • Shylock: Trump uses "shylock" again at a Kansas rally, and the ADL's answer leaves out his name. See Israel and the World.
  • England's schools: Sir David Bell's review makes antisemitism a safeguarding matter, after three in five Jewish pupils report experiencing it. See Israel and the World.
  • Hashmonaim: The haredi brigade commissions its first fifteen officers on the roof of the Western Wall Yeshiva. See Briefly Noted.

Distance explains most of it. The further an institution sits from the people it's meant to protect, the more of its answer comes as an explanation. Up close it's a volunteer patrol in north London, a division holding the Lebanese line, and a unit that knew which flight to meet.


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