NEWS NOTES ABOUT ISRAEL

Monday 17 August 2026

BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ

Unger, Craig (2024) Den of Spies: Reagan, Carter, and the Secret History of the Treason That Stole the White House. Boston and New York: Mariner Books.

Reagan “had No authority. To negotiate with Iran before he took the oath of office. And Iran would not have released the hostages without some communication with Team Reagan. But they did release the hostages. And yet, despite the self-evident nature of that anomaly Americans still responded, like an audience of young children who had been bewitched and bewildered by a magician’s sleight of hand and reflexively rejected. That took place in full view of the general public, in plain sight.”

ART: GAUGUIN

During the four years Paul Gauguin and his mother lived in Peru everything was big and beautiful. Everything about the city was dramatic. He slept with a little Negress and his sister. Just before they left Lima, he tried to rape one of his cousins, at the ripe old age of seven. Years later, he bragged about it to Mette.

NEWS NOTES:

ISRAEL

ARTICLE: Sharir Aug, Moran (8/15/26) “Naama Lazimi is the superstar of the Israeli left, and she wants power.” Haaretz.

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES

· Naama Lazimi is identified by Haaretz as the “No. 1 female target of the right’s poison machine.”

· Member of the Democrats party. Some in the Democrats party advocate extending a hand to the Arab parties.

· The Right win has branded her as a radical and an anarchist.

· Lazimi says, “Decades of Netanyahu have wreaked havoc on Israeli society.” He “went to hide in a bunker on the day of our worst national disaster and who looks out only for himself…” “The younger generation on the left doesn’t know what it’s like to be in power.”

· Lazimi: “The Zionism they’ve brought here is a Distorted Zionism. Zionism… means equal rights for everyone who lives in the country. As far as I’m concerned, the mistreatment of Arab society, not only Bedouin society, is something that runs counter to Zionism.”

· Civil servants deny that there is data “regarding (Haredi) educational institutions that don’t teach the core curriculum.” She says.

· She describes the final week of the Knesset as a week of plunder and disgrace. “members of the Finance Committee are asked to approve changes to the budget: Dozens and even hundreds of millions of shekels for purposes such as an additional allocation for the prime minister’s residence. An additional funding for security for Netanyahu’s family. Additional funding for the prime minister’s plane wing of Zion. Additional funding for Ron Dermer’s ministry, even though the ministry was shut down long ago.” (quote from article)

· She has called Likud a “criminal organization.”

· “Netanyahu has already decided that he’s a dictator, and he behaves according to the codes of a dictator…..He is the state, and the state is Netanyahu. That’s the worldview.”

NAMES

ARTICLE: “Eight ministers, lawmakers wanted to leave Netsnuahu’s Likud for Otzma Yehudit, Ben-Gvir reveals. The Jerusalem Post.

Names and Parties:

· Itamar Ben-Gvir, National Security Minister

· Otzma Yehudit, political party

· Likud, political party of Netanyahu

· Benzalel Smotrich, politician of Religious Zionist Party.

SETTLER VIOLENCE

ARTICLE: Krauss, Joseph (8/15/26) “There’s a reason why Israel has done little to rein in settler violence. It’s not just Netanyahu. AP News

· The Israeli military is refusing to remove settlers threatening Palestinians in their homes in the West Bank. This time, one of the homeowners is a Palestinian American living in Ohio.

· U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to the settlers as “terrorists.”

· AP News referred to them as “the tip of the spear” of a movement” supported by successive Israeli governments and “supercharged” by Netanyahu aimed at “cementing Israeli rule over the territory and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

· The Israeli government has built 150 settlements and some over 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank which was captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

· Netanyahu has boasted of establishing over 100 new settlements.

· Most of the international community views the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

· “The roughly 3,000,000 Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers. Israel’s military operates in all parts of the territory, and Palestinians suspected of militancy can be held without charge for months or years under. It’s known as administrative detention.”

· Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said in 2024 that Israelis would no longer be subject to Administrative detention and recently announced that he would be transferring law enforcement among settlers to the Israeli police. The military’s role, he said, was to fight “Palestinian terrorism,” not “chase after boys on the hills.”

· “That would cement the status quo of what are already largely separate legal systems For Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank, which major human rights groups say amounts to apartheid. Something Israel denies.”

· “The Israeli police. Are overseen by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Himself a hard line settler who has been convicted 8 times for offenses that include supporting a terrorist organization. He was a defense attorney for Jewish extremists before entering politics.”

· “Settler violence intensified after…Oct 7, 2023..The following year, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on settlers and Israeli organizations accused of violence.” Western nations have announced sanctions against Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of “inciting extremist violence” toward Palestinians.

· Trump rescinded the U.S. sanctions at the start of his second term. He also appointed Huckabee as ambassador. Huckabee is a “staunch supporter of Israeli settlements.”

· Netanyahu needs the support of Ben Gvir and Smotrich in the coming elections. Netanyahu’s main opponent, Gadi Eisenkot is against plans to annex the West Bank. Another leading rival of Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, had condemned the violence saying “it amounts to terrorism by a minority.” But when he was in office his administration approved thousands of additional settler homes.

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LIFE NOTES

Short Change is helping me work this morning. Mike’s brother came over and several of the cats migrated upstairs to get out of the way of the strange person who had arrived. Short Change seized the bed and leaned up against me.

I love working with a cat beside me and since Hiram Bernard died, I have felt very lonely and deprived. It is a treat to have a cat editor up here lending support, warmth, and affection.

Short Change even let me clean out his ears (he has lots of wax) and cut a few of his nails. He is now stretched out on Mike’s side of the bed. What a sweetie he is.

Short Change, in case you wondered, is named after a lyric in a Tom Waits song – “Short Change got rained on with his own .38.”

He is one of four kittens we adopted some seven years ago. His mother brought them to us as soon as they were old enough to eat solid food and beautiful as they were, we could not find homes for them. We did everything – we advertised on Facebook and Craig’s list, we put up leaflets, we even left leaflets in bars and restaurants. But the “no Kill Shelter” in town had over 60 kittens up for adoption at the same time and we had tough competition.

So, we kept them all, which left us with their mother, Myra, their faither, Errol Flynn, their uncle Jake da Mouth and the four kittens – Short Change, Nicki D., Alva Edison, and Cool Mustard.

It’s interesting, though, having an entire family of cats. Cats don’t usually get to grow up with their entire nuclear family. They play together, sleep together in one big pile, and still obey their mother. One of them (usually Nicki D.) almost always is sleeping with her. It’s still a family.

Have a good day, or as good as you can with Trump in office.

Christina