The Wrap: The “Deal.” Dismay. Despair. Desert Rave.

A capitulation and sellout that leaves Israelis reeling. And speechless.

Editor’s Note: I see no reason to re-invent the wheel and add my two cents to the tsunami of analysis generated in the last ten days or so. Instead, I encourage you to watch the first 40 minutes of this episode of Iran International, hosted and produced by my good friend, Canadian journalist, Negar Mojtahedi. In the first 22 minutes, Negar speaks with a former senior U.S. diplomat to break down and set out the “terms” of this very nebulous Memorandum of Understanding between the Islamic Republic of Iran and America. Her second guest is Gazelle Sharmahd, a Los Angeles-based American woman who is a prominent activist on behalf of the Iranian people. Her father, long a resident of the United States, was kidnapped by Iranian agents while in Dubai in 2020. He was imprisoned, tortured and murdered in captivity in October, 2024. Gazelle’s insight into the despair of the Iranian people – in and outside the country – is moving and deep. You will learn a great deal from watching this episode. It tells you everything you need to know, in my opinion, to draw your own conclusions about the merit of this chaotic, undisciplined approach to diplomacy. In the early days of Trump 2 I thought it was by design and seemed to be effective. Now? I believe that it is the consequence of volatile, undisciplined thought processes, analysis and behavior. On the part of the President. And those around him seem to little, if any, influence.

I have included at the end of this dispatch links to a few written pieces that are important to read in order to understand the Israeli reaction to this crazy time.

That’s what I am focusing on here, in State of Tel Aviv and Beyond.

Now, to The Wrap…..

I’m sure that all of you, like me, have cognitive whiplash. We have been reading, listening, watching, without pause, trying to make sense of it all.

Everything. Is. Crazy.

But this clip - from Israel’s Channel 12 marquee news talk show on Saturday night - is perhaps the best metaphor I can find to capture the madness. First, I will provide context.

Benny Gantz, a former IDF Chief of Staff, head of the now sputtering Blue and White political party, was invited to the show to discuss, well, politics. He is tall, blue-eyed, and considered to be a “salt of the earth” Israeli. The best of the best. The son of Holocaust survivors, Benny served the state as a career army professional. He will never light the world on fire with charisma and oratory, but he is widely regarded as being a good man, which in this country is a great compliment. As IDF Chief of Staff he was competent. Not a superstar but he did the job.

Benny entered political life in 2018 and since then he has has had highs and lows. In the clip below the two hosts – Ben Caspit and Amit Segal – are giving him the gears over the upcoming elections. Benny is mild-mannered. Measured. Some might describe him as being dull. Others would say he’s unflappable.

But when Ben Caspit asked him whether he would agree to sit in a government with Benjamin Netanyahu - should it come to that – Benny lost it.

I was tidying up the kitchen when watching this on Saturday evening. And I stopped. I was shocked.

Ben Caspit is a highly regarded and seasoned journalist in print and broadcast journalism. I consider him to be solidly centrist. Netanyahu would castigate him as a leftist elitist. He is smart and thoughtful and always strikes me as being well prepared, respectful and he knows his stuff.

Amit Segal is very different from Ben and you can see it clearly in this clip. He is the outlier on Channel 12; aggressively pro Bibi. (Netanyahu and his supporters tend to denigrate Channel 12 as being leftist propaganda but I disagree. It is centre/centre left. Channel 13 – centre/centre right. Channel 14 – owned by a Bibi supporter is unhinged pro Bibi.)

Amit is a partisan, hard-core right winger. Not once can I recall him uttering a critical word of Bibi or his Likud associates. Respectfully, that takes some serious discipline.

It is widely known in Israel that his father, Hagai Segal, was one of a group of Jewish terrorists who planted bombs in the cars of five West Bank mayors in 1980. Three explosives were detonated before the targets were blown up. Two bombs exploded and caused serious injury to the mayors of Ramallah and Nablus. Hagai Segal served two years of a three-year sentence for these crimes.

In the last year or two, Amit has been promoted by a small coterie of American shakers and movers, billed in the U.S. as being among the most highly regarded political analyst in Israel. American Jewish media and institutions tend to reflect a center right sensibility, overall. Amit is a big name in political journalism in Israel, to be sure. In recent years his star has fallen somewhat because of his unabashed shilling for PM Netanyahu and his crew. And in this clip – it is all on full display.

Benny Gantz is asked by Ben Caspit if he will agree to sit in a government with Bibi should that be an outcome of the coming elections. Benny (pardon my French) loses his shi*t. Watch this short clip – with English subtitles added.

Translation and subtitles: Maya Naftolin

People are dying in northern communities. Their lives are sheer hell. A never-ending October 7. Hezballah hammers them day and night. They aim rockets at school buses. SCHOOL BUSES. Forget about Trump. And ffs, Benny is saying….”AT A TIME LIKE THIS YOU ASK ME IF I WILL SIT WITH BIBI?!?!?”

What is wrong with you?

Ben Caspit takes his smackdown professionally. Unflinchingly. And let’s Benny rip.

But Amit Segal? He leans forward. And as Benny is thundering that it is time for Bibi to go home and adds that he will sit with a nationalist government that puts Israel’s interests first, Segal pipes up: “With Bibi, too.” Two seconds later, after Benny says we need all points on the political spectrum represented in the next government, Amit pipes up, again: “Correct.”

Read the room, Amit. Not now.

Amit Segal has an encyclopedic brain that seems to work as quickly as his mouth. Ratatat speed (hey – it’s a legit word in NYT Spelling Bee……so I can use it here…“ratatat.” Who knew?). But there was only one way for a professional newsman to conduct himself in that moment. And that was not it.

I’m with Benny. Can we please stop making this about Bibi? We are truly in a very drawn-out existential moment……greatly exacerbated by the conduct of Bibi. It is time for him to do the right thing and go home, exactly as Benny says. His legacy is and always will be October 7. Now it will also include the degradation of Israel’s deterrent capability as well as its relationship with America. Bibi has had more than enough time to work his magic. This country needs a refresh. Code red. And all that Amit Segal can do in that moment is pop up and say: “With Bibi,too.”

Sidebar: Later this week we will drop a podcast with Einat Wilf, former MK and the founder of a new political party, Oz, in which she explains why she is entering the fray in this way. One of her fundamentals is that 80% of Israelis are focused on the “who” in the election. Just like Ben Caspit and Amit Segal. Einat is targeting the 20% who she says are focused on the “what.” People who are focused on the substance. Coming soon….

I have been asked endlessly – since President Trump did what he seems to have done – what I make of it all. (In fairness, no one is clear as to exactly what Trump did – including Himself). I did not rush into the swirl of “hot takes” in the last week. There is an overload of analysis and speculation. And to be honest, I was numb for a few days. As, I believe, were most Israelis. Simply frozen.

So today I will get into a topic that is not discussed much outside of Israel. Our reality.

It never ends. We are living in a cycle of madness. A true Catch-22. No one is accountable. Noone seems to be thinking. Bibi appoints puppets to key security and intelligence roles. And when things swirl down the drain – as has transpired in the last week or two – he disappears. Just as he did on October 7. It took him five hours to address the nation on that dark day and declare that we were at war. Five hours. What the heck was he doing? We know that he had been aware of the massive invasion and ongoing slaughter for five hours at that point. And yet he sat in the secure pit in IDF HQ and said nothing.

That is not leadership.

Then he spent the next five days negotiating with extremists in his coalition to ensure that they’d support his war effort. His priority was to appease the extremist thug, Itamar Ben Gvir, so that he would not bolt the coalition and bring down the government. That dilemma occupied five days of Netanyahu’s attention. Power uber alles.

And now? After this MoU debacle?

Netanyahu made one brief statement in the days following the announcement of the MoU. In Hebrew (so the English language media would not show clips). This was for his domestic audience only. You can watch it here. (There are English subtitles.)

Since then, the prime minister chose to appear once - yesterday, in fact - at a conference organized by Jewish News Syndicate, a hard-right American-controlled media outlet that hews closely and loyally to Netanyahu’s positions. He spoke in English this time, emphasizing that Israel would act as necessary to proetect its interests and that no MoU would tie its hands in that regard. That was for American consumption.

Meanwhile, Israel is convulsing in despair, pain, and rage.

In addition to Israel’s international and the botched relations with America – Israel is a certifiable domestic disaster. And this deep dysfunction is a direct result of divisive policies promoted by the coalition government.

The ultra-orthodox - haredim as they are called in Israel - refuse to serve in the IDF. In recent months, the IDF Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, warned Netanyahu and the entire cabinet that the army cannot continue to perform as it must due to a crippling shortage of conscripts. More than 100,000 ultra-orthodox men are of draft age. The army urgently needs 12,000 soldiers. Minimum.

Instead of serving, they have taken to blocking roads to create chaos, and are stoked by their leadership to continue doing so. The haredim demand that the rest of the country should put their lives on the line - literally - and support them financially. Rather than donning uniforms and wielding weapons, they pray. And they tell the rest of Israel that it is their prayer that is our salvation. Not the army. All day long, they pray and learn. They have exceedingly large families that are raised in poverty and the cycle of dependency and ecosystem of power is self sustaining.

It is madness. Zamir warned recently: “I am waving ten red flags. The IDF will collapse in upon itself.”

Encouraged by their political and rabbinical leaders, thousands of young haredi men have been making a daily habit of blocking roads and engaging in violent acts demonstrating their opposition to the draft. Last week they vandalized the home of an Israeli Supreme Court judge who lives in a settlement in the West Bank. He is clearly right wing. His responsibility, also, is to work to ensure that Israeli law is upheld. Clearly, the haredim are furious that this judge interprets the law (correctly) to support the arrest of haredi draft dodgers.

His home was smeared with paint and windows were shattered, etc. Four haredi men were arrested in connection with that mafia-like intimidation event.

Earlier today, a gang of haredi thugs clashed violently with IDF soldiers who were preventing them from breaking into a military prison where haredi draft dodgers are being held.

Here’s a clip from the mayhem. No translation is necessary. This conduct is encouraged by MKs representing 15% of the population:

And here’s another clip from June 12 - at a haredi wedding. The reporter writes in an X post:

The mainstream in the Haredi sector - is becoming increasingly extreme. Last night at the wedding of Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch's grandson, the rabbi was filmed dancing to the tune of the song "Foiled Is Your Plan" in response to the attempt to draft young Haredim into the IDF. Our revered leader, in an exceptional manner, rose from his place to dance when the young men began to sing ‘Foiled Is Your Plan’ in light of the wicked war against the world of Torah.

The accompanying visual:

Last week was brutal.

As Israel reckoned with America’s about-face, dreadful tragedies unfolded. On June 19 in southern Lebanon, four young IDF soldiers were blown up in their tank by Hezballah. Shortly after that, on the night of June 19-20, Nir Ben Ari fell in battle just nine days before his 22nd birthday. A warrior with an elite combat unit, Ben Ari was not even supposed to be there. He was on the “holiday” that all soldiers get when the finish their service but before they are officially discharged. Ben Ari was at home and felt compelled to be with his team to support them. And he wanted to say goodbye before he flew off to Thailand for an extended vacation, a rite of passage of so many young Israelis when they finish their compulsory military service.

Nir Ben Ari was laid to rest yesterday. Sunday, June 21. As were the four other IDF soldiers who died on June 19.

On the day that five bereaved families buried their young sons, Minister of Housing and leader of the United Torah Judaism MK faction, Yitzhak Goldknopf, decided to make a “visit” to the military prison where haredi men are being held. They were arrested for refusing to report for duty once they were called up for IDF service. And Minister Goldknopf felt that today, when Israel buried five of its best, was a good day to pop into the prison to buck up the draft dodgers.

His cabinet colleague, Aryeh Deri, does this frequently as well.

Talk about incitement. Pouring salt on open wounds.

This. Is the reality of Israel today.

And this clip, below, shows Minister Goldknopf being feted by celebratory music and greeted worshipfully by so many young haredi men as he makes his way to the prison.

And then…..there are the miscreants and rogues in Israeli society and sitting in cabinet who say monstrous things. And the world notices. In one recent exchange, former PM Naftali Bennett took to X to tell celebrity talk show host Piers Morgan not to pay any attention to extremist nuts like Itamar Ben Gvir. They don’t really have power.

To which Morgan quite rightly responded by reminding Bennett that these men saying awful things are senior cabinet ministers. (And I pretty much never agree wtih Morgan.) He sure has a point. Naftali Bennett and many leaders tell us constantly that these extremists are just a “fringe” of Israeli society. But that is not true. We know that at least 10% of the electorate supports Itamar Ben Gvir, according to polls. That ain’t no fringe in this political system. That is real power.

If you wish to check out the online exchange on X between Bennett and Morgan you can do so here:

But this is the gist. Morgan is told to ignore Ben Gvir, and he quite rightly asks, “How can I? He’s a senior minister in the Israeli cabinet?”

To which Bennett responds, in part:

As for Ben Gvir: you’re citing the wrong person.
I already told you he’s a clown. A noisy and incompetent clown.

I would never have let him into my government, nor should Bibi have.
Soon we’ll be replacing this miserable government.
Ben Gvir insisted on rebranding himself as “National Security Minister” because he liked the dramatic title.
In reality, he oversees the police. He doesn’t command the IDF, doesn’t formulate military strategy, and doesn’t make operational decisions in Lebanon.

Quoting Ben Gvir to explain Israeli military policy is like quoting a loud backbencher to explain Britain’s war strategy.

Israel’s actions are determined by its government and carried out by the IDF in accordance with international law.

Except that Bennett is incorrect. Ben Gvir is not a backbencher. He is the Minister of National Security. His conduct is shameful and he should be shut down by the Prime Minister. Piers Morgan is absolutely correct.

Much as Bennett would like to say that Ben Gvir is irrelevant that simply is not true. He is a powerful minister overseeing a powerful portfolio and has been given free rein for three years by PM Netanyahu to wreak havoc domestically and abroad. He is a thug

In recent days we learned that the former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, stated that the American “deal” with Iran is God’s punishment for the state’s arrest of ultra-orthodox draft dodgers. For good measure, he refers to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara – a senior public servant who supports enforcement of the law (which, as it stands, requires all men from age 18 to serve in the IDF) as “garbage.” A “wicked woman.”

There’s more. Shas leader, MK Aryeh Deri (also haredi and a twice convicted felon who has served hard time on corruption-related offences) recently boasted that he is proud of his grandsons for refusing to serve in the IDF. His comments ignited a storm of outrage. Here is Oded Ben Ami, one of my favorite Israeli newscasters in his opening segment recently. Like Benny Gantz, Oded is not known for his excitable manner.

The X post translated states: Aren't you ashamed, Deri? Are you proud of your grandsons who break the law? How do you sleep at night knowing that you sent soldiers to fight and you keep your grandsons at home?

Here’s the clip from Channel 12. (Sorry that we don’t have subtitles but we just can’t keep up.):

Oded Ben Ami asks Deri directly: “Are you not ashamed?….Minister Deri….this is not moral…..”

PM Netanyahu? Silent.

This - the Israel we live in today - does not have a functioning government. This is not even benign neglect. It is full-blown self-destruction.

Ask yourself this. If you had a draft-age son or daughter – would you trust the government and IDF with the life of your child? This is a conversation that Israeli families are having. Not just left-wing anarchists. People of all socio-economic, political and religious backgrounds. There is a tipping point for every society – including Israel. We may have already passed it. We may be approaching it. But the Israeli people – which give so much and ask for relatively little in return from their national institutions – are perilously close to breakdown.

I asked some good friends of mine recently exactly the question I propose above. They have a son who is magnificent. Tall. Handsome. Brilliant. Accomplished and, most importantly, a lovely person. And so deeply patriotic. He aspires to serve at the highest level possible when he is drafted; in the most demanding units. This family is the best of Israel.

And I asked these parents, my friends: If your son was draft age today, do you have confidence in the IDF? In the government? Would you trust him to their judgement?

This impossible question is one that every Israeli family faces and has lived with since 1948. If the Jewish people have learned one thing in the last 2,500 years it is that only we can and will and must defend ourselves. The choice proves to be too much for some, and they leave Israel. Whatever their reasons no one is in a position to judge. Especially those who live abroad and those who shirk service while living here.

My friends’ pained faces said everything. But, still, they answered. They looked for a moment at one another, then back at me.

“No.”

No. They would not trust their son to the army.

Let that sink in.

And, yes. They have a Plan “B”, as do most Jews these days; those living in the diaspora and in Israel. If, where and when they will go, should they decide to leave Israel. Everyone is holding their breath for the election. But if this same coalition of extremists - or a variation thereon - becomes our government, again, I am certain that the fallout will be dramatic.

I am not being alarmist or fear mongering. It is reality in Israel today.

Last Thursday night I was at a desert concert and rave in the middle of nowhere. It is an event venue. Beyond cool. Approximately 2,000 people were there, aged 20s to 70s. The headline act was Berry Sacharoff – an Israeli rock legend. And we were all in character. Out for a night of fun. We can do this.

In the middle of Sacharoff’s set my friend noticed a drone in the sky. Everyone did. My first thought? Where are the paragliders? I am certain that everyone thought the same thing. Then. You tell yourself. No way. They couldn’t get this far into Israel without being detected. And then you remember. Oh. Wait. This already happened. And then you wonder, for a moment, if the drone is an attack drone. But you see the blinking lights. It’s the concert promoter’s drone. The blinking lights are green. Of all colors in the spectrum. Green. Hamas green.

And my friend says nothing but raises his arms and looks skyward.

“What the fu*k do you want from us?” Three times. He yells.

He and his family survived October 7 in a border kibbutz.

There really is no self-pity. We are just depleted. On the drive home, all we spoke about was the drone, and all the thoughts and fears that it evoked and triggered.

I am working on a longer piece looking at the mayhem of the moment in Israel. But I’m not rushing into the swirl of opinion. There is nothing fresh left to say. What is clear is that America is no longer a serious country when it comes to diplomacy and geoplitics. Decision making is undisciplined and uninformed.

This piece that ran in a hard right newspaper is one of the best pieces I’ve come across.

Earlier today, I interviewed our regular guest and superb commentator, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus , also a senior fellow with FDD. He has just returned from a west to east speaking tour through Canada, a place about which I know a thing or two. We will focus, of course, on this Iran mess but will leave time at the end to discuss his observations from Canada as well.

Our other regular guest, Yaakov Katz, has gone away for a few weeks for a well-deserved family holiday. Road trip in a part of the world I know well…..and served as pro bono travel consultant. (I wear so many hats.) We’ll hear from him again sometime in July,

As always, I finish off with something well – not totally gloomy. Here’s a taste of the concert last Thursday in the desert. Benny Sacharoff had just invited the lead singer and guitarist from one of the warmup acts to join him and his entourage on stage. That’s kind of like being anointed by royalty. The lead vocalist of the band Lola Marsh - Yael Shoshana - is wildly talented and I love that they chose to do one of my favorite songs of all time. Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. I recorded the first bit on my phone. It moves into a Hebrew medley from here. Just after 20 seconds there are a few seconds with just Yael and Benny in the frame.

Israelis live large. In the moment. They party. Hard. And they put on great shows. Man. We so needed to pretend for a night that we didn’t have a care in the world. Because here, it is not a cliche to ask: “Who knows what the next moment will bring?”

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