27 July 2026 – ICC prosecuter gets the boots, Bibi heads to Washington and more on The Israel Brief.
28 July 2026 – Boy George’s Karma chameleon smacks the haters, Bibi lands in Washington and more on the Israel Brief.
29 July 2026 – A romance in the Oval Office? Bibi and Trump meet and more on The Israel Brief.
30 July 2026 – Is Hamas about to surrender? Your headlines, morons and more on the Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose another government but to reaffirm the national commitment to the values on which the state was founded.
By PROF. URIEL REICHMAN
(Courtesy of The Jerusalem Post where first appeared this adaptation of the author’s address at the 2026 Herzliya Conference).
As Israelis prepare to go to thepollsin October, the question before them is about far more than who will form the next government. It is about the kind of Jewish state Israel intends to be. That question did not begin with the judicial overhaul initiated in 2023, nor will it end with the coming elections. It has been unfolding for decades, rooted in competing visions of Zionism and the identity of the State of Israel.
Jewish history offers a warning. Following the death of King Solomon, the kingdom split in two under his son Rehoboam. The rival kingdoms gradually weakened until both were destroyed. The lesson — that internal division leads to national catastrophe — remains painfully relevant.
To understand this moment in time, we must return to one that the country never fully confronted: the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
I will never forget the morning after Rabin was murdered. Hundreds of students gathered outside the university’s administration building, their eyes red from tears and a sleepless night, to light memorial candles. I spoke to them, my voice choked with emotion, about the Rabin I had known and about the stain his assassination would leave on Israel’s history.
I also told them that it would be a mistake to focus solely on the assassin, Yigal Amir. We had to examine the ideological environment that made the murder possible. Instead, under the banner of national unity, Israel largely avoided that reckoning, leaving the ideological roots of the assassination largely unexamined.
The Oslo Accords were the subject of legitimate public debate. Yet among some extremist elements within the religious settlement movement, opposition went beyond politics. Certain rabbis invoked the halachic doctrine of moser — a Jew who informs on fellow Jews or delivers their lives or property into the hands of hostile authorities. Under halachic law, a moser may be killed, and a Jew who kills him is considered to have performed a mitzvah.
Amir later stated that he had received rabbinic authorization to regard Rabin as a moser.
Leading rabbinic authorities, including the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had ruled that the moser doctrine had no place in the sovereign State of Israel. Yet Israel never fully confronted how such ideas had entered public discourse or what they signified for the future of the state.
The roots of that ideological transformation reach back to the Six-Day War.
Like many Israelis, I experienced the war as a moment of profound national renewal. As a paratrooper officer, I remember hearing Motta Gur announce, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” It was a deeply emotional moment. Many Israelis, secular and religious alike, felt they had reconnected with the biblical sites of Jewish history.
But two very different conclusions emerged from that victory.
Prof. Uriel Reichmanaddressing the 2026 Herzliya Conference at Reichman University.
Most Israelis saw it as an extraordinary military achievement, won through blood, courage, sacrifice, and comradeship. We did not regard settlement throughout the territories as a religious obligation. Their future, we believed, should be determined by Israel’s democratic institutions, weighing security, diplomatic, and moral considerations.
Another current, inspired by Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and developed by his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, saw the war as a decisive stage in the divine process of redemption. From this worldview emerged Gush Emunim, which regarded settlement throughout the biblical Land of Israel as a religious commandment and viewed the Six-Day War and the settlement enterprise as expressions of divine will.
This outlook gave rise to the question of the limits of obedience to the state when its decisions conflicted with the commandment to settle the Land. Over time, part of the movement underwent a deeper transformation. Increasingly, some held that the state lacked legitimate authority whenever it conflicted with the redemptive vision.
Following the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, this evolution accelerated. For some, the evacuation violated a divine commandment to “inherit the Land.” Among influential religious educators, particularly within the Bnei David pre-military academy and circles associated with the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a new constitutional vision gained ground. Their objective was not merely to influence public policy but to reshape the state itself — replacing a Jewish and democratic state with one whose constitution is the Torah — while building the political, educational, and public power needed to advance this goal.
In this conception, democracy is understood primarily as majority rule. Judicial independence, checks and balances, and the protection of minority rights are not regarded as essential features of democratic government but as obstacles to establishing a halachic state.
It is against this background that the judicial overhaul proposed in 2023 must be understood. This is not merely a dispute over the powers of the Supreme Court or the role of the attorney general. It reflects a much deeper debate over the source of Israel’s authority: whether it should remain faithful to the vision embodied in the Declaration of Independence or move toward a fundamentally different, religious model.
To this day, political theory continues to rest on Aristotle’s foundational insight that it is not the role of the state to enforce ideological or social unity. On the contrary, the purpose of the state is to enable people with different beliefs and convictions to live together, while promoting stability, openness, and moderation as guiding values.
The architects of modern Zionism — from Theodor Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion — rejected the idea of a theocratic state. They envisioned a Jewish state that would be democratic, committed to liberty, equality, and the rule of law. The Declaration of Independence captured that remarkable synthesis. It established Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people while pledging to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and guaranteeing “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.”
The judicial overhaul seeks to alter the very essence of the State of Israel and depart from the vision of Zionism embodied in the Declaration of Independence — a Jewish state committed both to national self-determination and to the principles of liberal democracy.
The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose another government but to reaffirm the national commitment to the values on which the state was founded and finally provide them with the constitutional framework they deserve. Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state depends on it.
About the author:
Prof. Uriel Reichman is the founding president and chairman of the Board of Reichman University. In July, 2026, he received the Presidential Medal of Honor, Israel’s highest civilian honor, awarded in recognition of his exceptional contribution to academia, Israeli society, and the State of Israel.This essay is adapted from the author’s address at the 2026 Herzliya Conference.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Every pillar of the genocide accusation against Israel has crumbled. The institutions that built it have suddenly lost their voices.
By Andrew Fox
Sometimes I think I am not angry enough, but the scale of the problem is almost too huge to be angry at, collectively. Towering rage must be split into smaller rages at each of the component parts of the blood libel machine.
The fantastical Lancet “studies” salivating over hundreds of thousands of imaginary dead Gazans.
AirWars’ pearl-clutching reports, drawing conclusions of civilian targeting in Gaza without a tenth of the evidence needed to draw said conclusions.
Amnesty, B’tselem and all the other NGOs, releasing fraudulent genocide conclusions achieved only by changing the definition and parameters of genocide.
The paid media squad of hacks, twisting and distorting and murdering the truth just to get one over on the Jewish state.
South Africa, ripping apart the genocide convention at Iran’s behest, making it harder to punish real genocides in future.
The whole sorry mess sickens me, and now the great indictment of Israel is coming apart, one revelation at a time. This fact is not being reported by a single damned one of the media outlets that have spent years screeching over the war in Gaza to the exclusion of almost all else. Famine, deliberate attacks on hospitals, the slaughter of journalists and children, and systematic obstruction of aid: each allegation was broadcast as settled fact and then used to prove genocidal intent. The same newsrooms and universities that thundered these charges have shown remarkably little interest in the evidence that now destroys each of these allegations.
Trading Places. Clockwise from top left: Jaber Mohammadin in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal in hospital scrubs and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Abd al-Latif Abu Tuaima in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; and Salem Jumaa Shirab in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform. (Photos: Palestinian Islamic Jihad social media, Facebook, social media)
It is incredible. There is no aspect of the genocide allegation that has not collapsed.
Start with the famine claim.
In August 2025, the IPC used two ways of measuring malnutrition in children: weight compared with height, and the size of a child’s upper arm. Gaza had no local data showing how those two measures matched up, so the IPC used an estimate from elsewhere in the region. It assumed the weight-and-height measure would find about twice as many malnourished children as the arm measurement.
The first large Gaza survey to use both measures found the reverse. Of 1,335 children surveyed in 2026, 0.5% were identified as acutely malnourished by weight and height, while 1.3% were identified by upper-arm measurement. That survey cannot tell us exactly what conditions were like in 2025. The later survey cannot recreate conditions in 2025, but it exposes the rotten foundation beneath a verdict presented to the world as scientific certainty: a key assumption behind the famine declaration had never been tested in Gaza itself.
The food figures are equally awkward. Official COGAT-based data show that about 1.01 million tonnes of food entered Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 17 January 2025, against an estimated requirement of 825,000 tonnes. From the October 2025 ceasefire to 7 June 2026, 1.78 million tonnes entered, against a calculated need of roughly 643,000 tonnes.
Of course, food crossing a border does not guarantee it reaches every family. Roads were destroyed, distribution failed, aid was looted, and Israel’s two-and-a-half-month block on aid in spring 2025 was a grave error. However, those qualifications cannot rescue the claim of a continuous Israeli policy to starve Gaza. The quantities of food that entered Gaza are simply too large.
The hospital narrative has also disintegrated. American intelligence independently confirmed that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used al-Shifa for command operations, weapons storage, and to hold hostages. Hamas accounts now describe armed men, including senior officers, sheltering inside the hospital during an Israeli siege. Hospitals remained protected, and Israel still had to obey the laws of war, but the moral fairy tale of innocent hospitals attacked by the brutal IDF is dead. There is now endless evidence in the public domain of Hamas using hospitals for military purposes.
Medics who Murder. Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal in hospital scrubs (left) in a photo circulated after his death and (right) in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform, after the group identified him as one of its members. (Photos: PIJ screenshots)
The casualty statistics have fared no better. The claim that 70% of the dead were women and children became a fixture of global coverage. OCHA’s July 2026 snapshot, based on Gaza Health Ministry figures for 71,444 identified fatalities, placed those categories at 45.2 %. Adult men make up over 50% of the fatalities, from a pre-war adult male percentage of approximately 25% of the population. Not all adult men can be counted as combatants, but a figure repeatedly cited as proof of indiscriminate slaughter is now shown to be false when applied to the overall toll. The “hundreds of thousands” of dead under the rubble have likewise not materialised. That number is completely implausible, given Gaza’s mechanism for reporting the missing and the financial compensation incentives to use it.
Killers in Scrubs. Ibrahim Abd al-Raouf al-Farra in hospital scrubs (left), in a photo circulated after his death and (right) in Hamas uniform, after the group identified him as one of its members. (Photo: Hamas screenshot)
The supposed massacre of journalists is now unravelling in the same way. A Meir Amit Centre study of 266 people listed as journalists or media workers found that 157, around 60 %, were members of or clearly affiliated with terrorist organisations. The Committee to Protect Journalists has already removed eight names after establishing that they were Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad combatants, removed another twelve for other reasons, and, after this exposure came to light, opened a full review. Other OSINT (open-source intelligence) suggests this figure of combatants is even higher.
This proves that “journalist” was often a dangerously incomplete label and that lurid claims of Israel slaughtering journalists were nothing more than propaganda. An artillery commander does not become a civilian by picking up a camera. Major outlets repeated the raw total for years, yet now they are barely reporting its collapse.
‘Hypocrisy and Manipulation’, 6 August, 2025, Israeli president Isaac Herzog exposes Hamas-led propaganda, citing investigative reports from leading German newspapers that revealed staged images from Gaza. Herzog contrasted these fabricated scenes with the very real suffering of Israeli hostages, exposing what he called Hamas’ “hypocrisy and manipulation.”
The same contamination appears across lists of healthcare workers and children. Militant obituaries have identified numerous medical workers as commanders and operatives, while faction records have revealed teenagers listed only as children despite their documented recruitment into armed groups. Recruited minors remain victims of the adults who used them, but age alone cannot establish civilian status or Israeli intent.
Hamas’s role in the aid disaster has finally forced its way into the UN’s own language. In July 2026, a senior UN official accused armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s “de facto authorities” (i.e. Hamas) of breaking into a food distribution point and a World Food Programme warehouse, assaulting drivers and participating in a wider pattern of intimidation, obstruction and smuggling attempts. Years of sneering at Hamas’s aid diversion as Israeli propaganda ended with the UN admitting it.
From Stethoscope to Automatic Firearm. Mohammed Akram al-Kafarna, head of the Palestinian Nurses and Midwives Syndicate in Gaza and whose death was mourned by the International Council of Nurses, was also a member of Hamas. ( Photo: Hamas screenshot)
Academia performed no better. The International Association of Genocide Scholars declared Israel guilty, falsely claiming that the International Court of Justice had found genocide “plausible”. The court’s former president had already explained that it made no such finding. Only 28 % of the association’s members voted. Membership was open to literally anyone, yet headlines announced the judgment of the world’s genocide scholars. The same applies to the fraudulent squad of historians newly reinventing themselves as “genocide scholars”, assuming authority their qualifications do not grant, and grandly declaring Gaza a genocide. No mea culpa from these frauds. There are books to be sold.
No newspaper article pulled those triggers, and the hatred long predates Gaza, but the relentless depiction of the Jewish state as a child-killing, famine-making engine of genocide gave old hatred a new moral vocabulary. Jews everywhere were forced to answer for accusations that the evidence can no longer sustain. The genie of antisemitism is out of the bottle, and any corrections now will not put it back. The academics, NGOs, politicians and journalists who spread the genocide blood libel without waiting for evidence (or fabricating their own) now have blood on their hands.
“Gazawood”. While increasingly exposed are the ‘journalists’ who have staged depictions of daily life in Gaza and of fabricating images and videos, the damage to blacken Israel’s reputation has been done.
Israel should already have been exonerated of the blanket charge that it sought to exterminate Gaza’s civilians. Individual strikes and alleged crimes still require investigation, but genocide cannot remain the default verdict after every single factual pillar supporting it has cracked.
The record now requires urgent correction, followed by inquiries within the universities and professional bodies that lent the libel their prestige. Some of those responsible should resign.
They will not.
The people who spread these blood libels remain in post, reviewing one another’s work and hoping nobody notices the ruins of their reputations.
About the writer:
A veteran of three grueling tours of Afghanistan, Major Andrew Fox holds a Batchelor’s degree in Law & Politics, a Master’s in Military History & War Studies, Msc in Psychology and is currently studying for a PhD in History.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
What is the connection between the bombing of the King David Hotel 80 years ago and Moshav Gan Ner in Northern Israel?
By David E. Kaplan
One of the most iconic blots in Israel’s fight against the British for independence was the bombing of the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946, eighty years ago last week. Ninety-one people, died when explosives planted by an Irgun commando detonated in the basement of the building, which housed, among others, the British headquarters for Palestine.
An act of terrorism which killed mostly civilians, but:
Was it true as it was once asserted that no warning was issued?
Hotel Headquarters. The aftermath of the bombing in July 22, 1946 carried out by the Irgun Jewish underground at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the British headquarters for Palestine.( Wikimedia Commons)
BUILD-UP TO A BOMBING
To understand the circumstances leading to the bombing of one of the most historically iconic architectural gems in Jerusalem, one must understand the acute desperation of the parties to the conflict at the time.
On June 29, 1946, Britain launched Operation Agatha — a random name choice unrelated to the ‘who done-it’ novelist -in which 25,000 British troops participated, raiding the Jewish Agency headquarters and imposing curfews, seizing arms, and confiscating documents detailing Hagana operations and the activities of the joint resistance movement that included:
– the Hagana, the most organized group, which was aligned with the Jewish Agency;
– the Irgun, the Revisionist movement led by Menachem Begin that had initiated many military actions; and
– Lehi, which was the acronym for “Lohamei Herut Yisrael,” the smallest and most extreme of the three.
All three groups had put aside their differences and rebelled against British rule to pressure the revocation of the White Paper under Neville Chamberlain’s government which sought to appease the Arab population in Mandatory Palestine on the eve of World War II by:
– severely limiting Jewish immigration
– restricting land purchases, and
– abandoning the goal of a Jewish state.
The British arrested 2,700 individuals, including Moshe Sharett, head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department and future prime minister; David Remez, chairman of the Jewish National Council; Yitzhak Gruenbaum, director of the Jewish Agency’s Labor Department; and Dov Yosef, a prominent Jewish Agency member and future minister. A people traumatized, the day went down in modern Jewish history as “Black Saturday” until it was superseded by the events of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
The documents seized by the British were taken to the British Mandate Secretariat, located in the King David’s southern wing. As the center of British mandate rule in Palestine, the hotel was treated as a target even before Operation Agatha and with the transfer of these compromising documents to the secretariat it hastened a strategic decision to bomb the hotel.
Cities on Edge. British paratroopers enforce curfew in Tel Aviv post-bombing, July 1946. (Photo: public domain)
So, what is the connection of the bombing to the community settlement of Gan Ner, founded in northern Israel, south of Afula in 1987?
At the turn of the millennium, Lord Grenville Janner was visiting Israel from the UK and he addressed a meeting in Ra’anana where I had the opportunity to interview him.
Lordship in Ra’anana. Interviewing Lord Grenville Janner, the son of Sir. Barnett Janner in Ra’anana in 2007. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
He revealed an illuminating conversation he had with his mother following the passing of his father Sir Barnett Janner, who had preceded him as the Labour M.P. for Leicester West in the House of Commons and had also been president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews:
She said:
“Your Dad worked all his life for Israel and there is nothing named after him. You should rectify this and go see Mr. Begin.”
“The Israeli Prime Minister! What do I tell him?” asked the son.
“I’ll tell you. Not so long ago, a colonel wrote to your father revealing that he was in the King David hotel when Begin’s organization blew it up. However he knew that Begin had warned the military authorities prior to the operation, which our British government has always denied. He confirmed that he had been present when the warning call from the Irgun came through to the hotel switchboard confirming an effort was made to protect lives. Your father, despite being ideologically poles apart from Begin, had the courage to stand up in the House of Commons and proclaim that truth. It could no longer be publicly denied.”
JANNER DOESN’T GEL
So, Greville dutifully went off to see the Menachem Begin. The Israeli Prime Minister’s response was:
“Sure, we are truly thankful to your father for revealing an unpopular truth in your Parliament. However, we can’t name a place in Israel ‘Janner’ – it’s not a Hebrew sounding name.”
Labored for his People. Labour MP, Sir Barnett Janner who was created a life peer in 1970 held many positions in the Jewish community, including President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews 1955–64 and a member of the executive of the British Zionist Federation.
Pondering for a few seconds, Begin then continued:
“How about Gan Ner? Sounds Israeli and more-or-less like Janner and translates into Hebrew as ‘Candel Garden’. After all, your father shone a candle of light illuminating a truth. Nu, how about it?”
It was agreed.
Running for Office. A 1920 Cardiff City Council election poster when a young Barnett Janner stood unsuccessfully for election to Cardiff City Council as a candidate of the Comrades of the Great War.
However, when Begin suggested that Gan Ner should be located “in Judea or Samaria,” Lord Janner said he resorted to some very unLORDly Yiddish expletives to describe what his late liberal father would have thought about that and “So today, there is a delightful settlement of some 700 souls nestled in the heart of Israel in the Jezreel Valley at the foothills of Mt. Gilboa.”
That was over two decades ago and as at 2024, Gan Ner has expanded to over 2,657 souls with its Gan Ner Sports Hall serving as the home venue for the Hapoel Gilboa Galil professional basketball team.
Embedded into Landscape. An aerial view of Gan Ner at the foot of Mt. Gilboa in the Yizreel Valey named after Jewish British politician, Sir. Barnett Janner.
EPILOGUE
Unlike the warning given in 1946, there was no warning when a mass of marauding killers crossed over from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 massacring Jews wherever they found them. “Black Saturday” of 1946 had an all-new meaning, and among the many murdered on October 7, was a young resident from Gan Ner, 22-year-old “partygoer” Stav Barazani.
She attended the Nova Music Festival with her boyfriend, Asaf Edberg. The two fled together and took refuge in a police station, where they were subsequently found and murdered.
For Stav, Gan Ner or ‘Garden Candel’, burns eternally – a flame of remembrance.
Stav Barazani, 22, from Gan Ner, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
20 July 2026 – Mamdani threatens to arrest Netanyahu and who has pulled out of South Africa’s ICJ case. This and more on The Israel Brief.
21 July 2026 – Mamdani gets a Presidential smackdown and the IDF’s longest humanitarian mission and more on The Israel Brief.
22 July 2026 – President Aoun, we are waiting to make peace! Could Lebanon join the Abraham Accords? This and more on The Israel Brief.
23 July 2026 – Mamdani’s sinister video, your mensches and morons and more on The Israel Brief.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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More than shaking hands, it could be a real shake-up towards peace between Israel and Lebanon.
Marking the first visit by a Lebanese president to the White House in more than 17 years, will Joseph Aoun’s upbeat meeting with a jubilant Donald Trump on July 21, 2026, herald a genuine path to peace between Israel and Lebanon? (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
HERZLIYA CONFERENCE MESSAGE – TIME TO TRANSITION
Failures leading to October 7 followed by poor policies since, necessitate a switch in direction and a ditch of leadership. By David E. Kaplan
Saving the State. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Prof. Amos Gilead (r) interviews retired Supreme Court President Aharon Barak at the 2026 Herzliya Conference, who delivers a stark warning about the state and fate of Israeli democracy, relying now on the public – come elections – to salvage the situation.
Relocated to the US, a popular South African journalist switches media platform to further outreach her antisemitism. By Lawrence Nowosenetz
‘UPFRONT’ in her Prejudice. Working for her new boss Al Jazeera in the USA, SA journalist Redi Tlhabi is more than happy to propagate an antisemitic narrative evidenced by her postings like “…the Israeli lobbyuses money and power to control the US and its lawmakers.”
Where is the global outrage at new UN finding of Hamas’ obstruction of humanitarian aid? ByKenneth Moeng Kgwadi
Daylight Robbery. Late to the game, the UN finally admits in a statement that international aid trucks are being hijacked and vital provisions stolen by “armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s de facto authorities” – code for Hamas – and are also assaulting aid workers.
An Israeli visiting London while war rages in the Middle East. By Sidney Victor Kaplan
Having a Field Day. From a cricket test at Lords to a Bach concert at the Wigmore Hall, the writer discovers while visiting London that you can leave Israel but Israel never leaves you.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
An Israeli visiting London while war rages in the Middle East.
By Sidney Victor Kaplan
If life is crazy in Israel these days, sometimes it is no less crazy for an Israeli finding himself outside Israel.
I live on a moshav ‘Manof’ in the north of Israel that has been subjected to endless sirens warning of incoming missiles, mostly from Hezbollah in Lebanon but also from Iran.
It is not that we are specifically being targeted but because we are situated near Rafael – Israel’s state-owned aerospace and defense technology company responsible for pioneering and producing such famed operational defense systems like the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Iron Beam – we are ‘included’ on a ‘hit list’ and I’m not referring to a collection of popular songs.
So, like all Israelis, I am armed by having a fully loaded cellphone, which has the lifesaving Home Front Command app that prepares you with a warning of an impending siren that in turn warns you of an impending missile. The only thing is, this abrasive ear-piercing rat-a-tat warning sound is loud, disruptive, intrusive and irritatingly inescapable.
To escape it – or so I thought – I went off to London for a week on my annual pilgrimage to watch cricket and listen to music.
MANOF TO MARLEBONE
So, there I was this past June ensconced at my usual seat, not watching the Ashes, which I try never to miss, but a 5 -day test between England and New Zealand at Lords, home of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
Having a Field Day. Away from war in the Middle East, the writer watches a more sedate battle at Lords between England and New Zealand.
The atmosphere could not be more different from Israel. Far removed from the soundtrack of war of sirens and planes flying above to a blend instead of reverent tradition, hushed anticipation and quite elegance all set against historic architecture, where the crowd’s deep knowledge and respect for the game shines through.
However, one can never really escape.
Despite being away, the mind never leaves Israel and so one is constantly tracking the news. It was refreshing looking at the sky above Lords, seeing only birds and the flight of a red cricket ball rather than planes and missiles. Also, no piercing warning and sirens, just the occasional “HOWZAT” when things were hotting up on the pitch. Meanwhile, I could see – tapping into newsfeeds – that things were ‘hotting up’ in the north of Israel, although all was quiet at Manof.
That was until that evening!
And this is where it gets crazy. I forgot to turn off my blaring siren warning app and off I went to the Wigmore Hall to hear a solo violinist performance of Bach. And, midway during the recital in this famed historic concert hall, my phone starts blaring, warning on an incoming missile – in the middle of a Bach concert!
OMG, I was stunned, immobilized, instant panic. What do I do? Nobody sitting around me, or more likely their parents or grandparents had experienced anything like this since the bloody Blitz!
I felt like Mr. Bean – How do I shut down this noise. The last thing you want in London is to advertise you are Israeli, which was exactly what I was doing. I wonder what people thought as they saw me shove my phone under my bum as I tried to muzzle the shrieking alarm competing with the solo violin.
Lover of Lords. The writer stands below a board at Lords Cricket Grounds that includes a plaque celebrating his birthday with the wording ‘HOME AWAY FROM HOME.
To say this felt CRAZY is an understatement. There I was, absorbed in the beauty of a Bach solo, only to be suddenly yanked back to the reality of what was happening back home, thousands of miles away in the Middle East.
How do you explain this to someone? Sitting peacefully in a world class concert hall in London but technologically and emotionally tied directly back to an air raid alert back home in Israel.
You can’t even get away and relax overseas.
Bach to the Bizarre. Enjoying a Bach recital in Wigmore Hall, London shortly before the writer’s app on his cellphone warned him of an incoming missile near his home in Israel. (Photo: Sidney V. Kaplan)
About the writer:
Sidney Kaplan is originally from Cape Town South Africa and a founding member of ‘Manof’, a moshav founded in the Galilee in 1978. Today, he is retired, having been involved in marketing in Cape Town prior before coming to Israel, and in Israel, one of three partners involved in the flower growing industry for export.
*Feature picture: Lord’s Cricket Ground, the most famous cricket ground in the world.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Where is the global outrage at new UN finding of Hamas’ obstruction of humanitarian aid?
By Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi
There has been near-total silence from many of Israel’s critics following the recent United Nations (UN) finding that Hamas obstructed the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Hamas had long portrayed the humanitarian crisis as solely the result of others denying Gazans access to necessities such as food, medicine, water, clothing, and other essential supplies. However, the UN’s finding indicates that Hamas itself also played a role in preventing civilians from accessing this aid.
Trucks and the Truth. While for much of the war in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid, intimidating aid workers and exploiting relief operations for its own benefit (seen above), the UN has finaly now issued a statement condemning what it describes as armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s de facto authorities for interfering with humanitarian operations, entering aid distribution sites, assaulting aid workers and disrupting the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Such actions serve Hamas’ political objectives by reinforcing its narrative of victimhood on the global stage. By obstructing humanitarian assistance while simultaneously presenting itself as the defender of Gaza’s population, Hamas has contributed to shaping international perceptions of the conflict in ways that advance its own strategic interests.
This is the same group of people who refused to allow people to leave endangered locations for the humanitarian zones after the Israel Defense Force (IDF) issued warnings of impending strikes. In their minds, they were being strategic in order for Israel to kill civilians and have blood on its hands, so that the world would believe that the IDF is the monster and isolate Israel in order to achieve their political and religious ends. It has previously been stated that Hamas is using innocent civilians as human shields, but to date the UN has neither seen, investigated, nor acknowledged some of these indictments.
In a strongly worded statement dated 12 July 2026, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, said:
“I strongly condemn the recent obstruction of humanitarian operations in Gaza by the de facto authorities, which endangered humanitarian personnel, intimidated workers delivering lifesaving food assistance and disrupted lifesaving humanitarian assistance.”
What happened on Saturday, when armed Hamas men ambushed two truck drivers at a World Food Program warehouse, was not the first time they had stolen, hijacked, or intimidated humanitarian personnel. At the height of the war between Israel and Hamas, they stole food aid in order to feed their insurgents in the tunnels, while the remaining food aid was sold at exorbitant prices to the poor people of Gaza. Since its formation in 1987, Hamas has become accustomed to not taking any form of accountability for its actions. They always falsely blame Israel as a political strategy and people who accept this false narrative are complacent in the destitution that the people of Gaza are confronting.
Truth be Told. Following the IDF saying months ago that Hamas was hijacking aid trucks and stealing aid and were denounced as liars, the UN’s Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, admits that Hamas stole aid and disrupted distribution.
Hamas won political power in 2006 but has held elections in 20 years. It recently announced the dissolution of its governing “Emergency Committee” stepping aside to transfer administrative authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) as part of the U.S.-brokered peace and ceasefire plan.
As a government ruling more than two million people, they have only brought terror to the lives of those people by inviting unnecessary wars, while they could have created a conducive environment for their people to thrive. It is highly unlikely that Hamas would be attacked by Israel without any provocation because Israel has invested its time and resources in establishing ties with its neighbours. In all the wars that have taken place between Israel and Hamas, it has always been Hamas that started the war, with Israel counter-attacking as a form of defense of its territory.
Since 2006, Hamas has been majorly responsible for the poor material conditions of the people of Gaza through its political divisions, incompetence, corruption, and war-mongering policies. Throughout the past 20 years, they have never gone to elections to allow the citizens to vote for their preferred government and use elections as an accountability mechanism, which means they have continuously imposed themselves on the people of Gaza to their detriment.
Hamas Takeover. Seen here in 2007, Hamas security force officers attack a Fatah supporter as he lays on the ground in Gaza City, following Hamas’ violent takeover of the Strip in June. (Photo: Adel Hana / AP)
About the writer:
Kenneth MoengKgwadiis a political scientist, journalist, and research fellow at the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI).
*Feature picture:Hamas Hijack. A Hamas coordinated intercepting food aid from trucks.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
Failures leading to October 7 followed by poor policies since, necessitate a switch in direction and a ditch of leadership.
By David E. Kaplan
Addressing the 2026 Herzliya Conferenceat Reichman University, an exuberant and entertaining US Ambassador, Mike Huckabee said that when President Trump
“….. was looking who to appoint as the new ambassador for Israel, he said “Find me a ‘Maccabee”. Maybe, his folks didn’t hear him right so here I am instead – a Huckabee.”
All familiar with the biblical history, everyone laughed; it was witty but it was the proverbial ‘last laugh’ of the two-day intense conference such are the distressing existential issues confronting Israel today.
Two-Way Street. Following US VP JD Vance saying much of Israel’s defense was American-made and taxpayer-funded, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee says Israel provides technology, agriculture and intelligence that ‘saves, protects and takes care of Americans all over the world’.
PRESERVING DEMOCRACY
The tone of the Conference was set in a riveting interview of retired Supreme Court President Aharon Barak by Maj. Gen. (Res.) Prof. Amos Gilead. The warm applause that greeted this retired jurist and judge was telling of a man who survived the Kovno Ghetto by being smuggled out in a sack before his family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine and who would serve as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006.
Saving the State. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Prof. Amos Gilead (right) interviews retired Supreme Court President Aharon Barak at the 22nd Herzliya Conference, who delivers a stark warning about the state of Israeli democracy, cautioning that the country lacks critical checks and balances and is “moving away from being democratic.” The Hon. Prof. Aharon Barak | Herzliya Conference 2026
Known for his monumental impact on Israeli law, he warned Israeli democracy was unraveling. Undoing much of the safeguards he had contributed in securing, Barak warned that Israel was losing – under the current government – the necessary checks and balances, “placing the ultimate responsibility to protect the country’s democracy on the public.”
And why was he then still optimistic, Barak answered:
“There is an upcoming election; the people can change direction.”
The esteemed former Supreme Court justice was saying Israel’s salvation lay not with those today in office but with those tomorrow who will vote!
That “tomorrow” is October 27, 2026.
A DEFINING DIFFERENCE
There was something very different about 2026’s Herzliya Conference. Firstly, it was scheduled for weeks earlier but because there was the fear that the war with Iran would again flare up – which it now has – it was postponed, finally settling June 30 to July 1. Such uncertainty is the norm these days in Israel. As I write, the Maccabi Games or “Jewish Olympics” is being held, having being postponed from the previous year for the same reason – fear of war!
In these turbulent times, missiles raining down on Israel’s civilian population is less a surprise and more a question of:
“Are they from Iran, Hezbollah or the Houthis?” That covers north, east and south, and would also be from the west if Gaza had not been considerably neutralized.
One of the first questions the residents in my apartment complex collectively ask whenever we hurriedly assemble in the bomb shelter following a siren:
“Who is firing at us? Is the missile coming from Iran, Lebanon or Yemen?”
This bizarre scenario is a metaphor for life today in Israel. Our attackers could be coming at us from multiple directions and it could be separate or in concert. How frequently in our bomb shelter I would be on WhatsApp with my brother living in the north of Israel who was under attack from Hezbollah while we, in the center of the country, were under ballistic missile attack from Iran. Israel is surrounded by enemies who actively campaign for its demise hence the theme of this year’s Herzliya Conference was:
“Between National Security and National Resilience”.
A high-level strategic forum for evaluating Israel’s geopolitical standing and domestic resilience, the Herzliya Conference brings informed individuals from the Israel’s political, military, security, intelligence, academic and business communities together to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and build professional relationships.
All this in defense of Israel, but this conference in 2026 there was a difference because speaker after speaker conveyed the fear – Where lies the danger, in Tehran or Jerusalem? Between the crazy Ayatollahs and Bibi’s cobbled – and no less crazy – coalition, one had to try make sense of it all and plot a viable path forward.
As many of the speakers expressed that while Israel relies on “military power”, “economic stability” and “technical innovation”, it relies as much on “social cohesion” and “public trust”, both of which are currently being eroded. The lack of public trust in Netanyahu’s government was expressed in full throttle at the panel discussion surrounding Israel’s avoidance of a State Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 disaster.
Participating in the panel were two fathers who had lost children in the present war. One was Eyal Eshel, father of Roni Eshel, an IDF observation soldier, murdered at the Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023. Eyal has become a vocal advocate for accountability, demanding a state commission of inquiry and frequently challenging government officials over the security failures that led to the tragedy. What most exposed the Prime Ministers “disconnect” was when Yoram Yehudai, the father of Ron Yehudai, who was murdered at the Nova music festival related his revulsion to the Channel 14 interview when Netanyahu was asked how he had personally changed since October 7 and jokingly replied that he had “lost a little weight“.”
Really?
“I lost a son and he jokes that he lost weight,” and added “I haven’t laughed at jokes in a thousand days.”
Discussions surrounding Israel’s avoidance of a State Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 disaster were a focal point at the 2026 Herzliya Conference with experts, including military and legal analysts, weighing in on the implications of sidestepping this statutory investigative mechanism.
Avoiding a formal State Commission of Inquiry – which is the most authoritative, independent investigative body under Israeli law, possessing the power to subpoena witnesses and issue binding, personal recommendations – shifts the inquiry to internal government reviews or politically appointed committees.
Panelists at the Conference argued that bypassing this independent probe, threatens long-term military accountability and public trust exposing the prime minister and his governing coalition to the not unfair accusation “as being more concerned over political survival” and “preserving wartime coalition stability,” rather than the national interest.
WEIGHTY ISSUES
Also not sharing Netanyahu’s joke about having “lost weight” since October 7, was the former Chief of Staff and an aspiring future prime minister.
Interviewed at the Herzliya Conference by Channel 2’s prime time anchor, Dana Weiss, Gadi Eisenkot – now Leader of the Yashar Party – brought credibility to his criticism of the prime minister, having lost not “weight” but a son and two nephews in the current war. He stated that his primary goal is to defeat Netanyahu’s coalition, asserting that leaders in command on October 7 “are unfit for the future.” He makes the case that “Twice, there was a sovereign Jewish kingdom here in the land of Israel,” referring to the Hasmonean Kingdom and the House of David, and “twice, it collapsed and fell apart in the eighth decade of its existence. Once again, we stand at a fateful point.”
To avoid a repeat dissolution, Eisenkot argued for Israelis to unify and come election, to remove the prime minister who he asserts “is out of touch,” and “unfit” to remain in office.
Eisenkot characterizes the cabinet as lacking independent thought, stating, “We have a weak Cabinet of submissive people,” allowing Netanyahu to lead the country in the wrong direction without challenge.
UNFIT FOR OFFICE
Being “out of touch” and “unfit” was the shared view of many of the speakers of a government that was undermining (during a war) the unity, solidarity and sustainability of Israeli society by its support of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) exemption from military and civil service. Conference participants could have opened the front pages of any of the daily papers and seen Haredi protests across the country, blocking traffic in support of their community’s “draft doggers.” This was no ‘Ivory Tower’ academic conference – the issues discussed were playing out on Israeli streets and Israel’s borders.
Experts warned that “demographic shifts and draft exemptions are fracturing national resilience and placing an unsustainable burden on the shrinking portion of the public that serves in the military and productive economy.”
The main concerns expressed regarding the Haredi threat was what was called the collapse of the “People’s Army” – so foundational and fundamental to Israel’s DNA. Experts highlighted that only about a third (35%) of each Israeli cohort completes significant military service. They warned that it is mathematically unsustainable for this minority to bear the security burden for the remaining 65% of the population indefinitely.
Reinforcing this concern, President Isaac Herzog used his address to warn of the “danger of social disintegration.” He stressed “the urgent need to renew the shared civic contract,” pointing to “the growing alienation between draft-exempt sectors and the broader Israeli public” that is actively bearing the costs of ongoing conflicts.
Despite the government pushing support for Hareidi draft dodgers, there is no dodging reality. Surveys presented at the Conference showed that a vast majority of the Israeli public demands equal burden-sharing, with 72% supporting the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox. The failure to integrate the Haredim into national and security service was cited as a “primary driver” of the extremely “low levels of social cohesion and trust in the government.”
President’s Warning. “Instead of being a diverse and thriving society of brothers and sisters, who quarrel and yet reconcile, we risk becoming a landmass that has broken apart into a handful of islands. Islands of exhausted, worn-out people…armed with a sense of absolute righteousness,” warned President Herzog addressing the 2026 Herzliya Conference. (Photo: GPO/Ma’ayan Toaf)
ECONOMIC STRAIN
Also flagged as existential long-term concerns were the failure of the Haredi educational system to incorporate core secular subjects (like math and science) and the community’s general lack of economic productivity.
Economists at the conference warned that as the productive tax base shrinks relative to the rapidly growing Haredi population, the burden on the working sector risks pushing skilled professionals out of the country.
All these discussions occurred against a backdrop of intense societal division, with the Haredi leadership threatening to dissolve the ruling coalition if the government did not advance laws that would permanently freeze draft enforcement and elevate Torah study to a foundational constitutional value.
EPILOGUE
Now post the conference, if ever there is an example why this government has failed to learn its lesson since October 7 and why is needs to be replaced is in the unfolding drama following Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir’s recent letter to PM Netanyahu and others warning against legislation that would freeze arrests of Haredi draft dodgers.
Following months of warning that the IDC is facing a critical manpower shortage and needs an influx of 12,000 soldiers, he wrote that such legislation would create “a disincentive to report for miliary service” since it grants immunity from prosecution and would thus “rather than encourage enlistment” – which is desperately needed – it would do the opposite.
“Such a move would, “ wrote Zamir, “cause a rapture with those who have borne the burden of fighting for the past two and a half years, and would increase the sense of inequality.”
How can one argue against this logic.
Nevertheless, this is precisely what this government is doing by attacking the country’s top military officer accusing him of indulging in politics instead of focusing on “winning the war,” as expressed by Likud backbencher, Amit Levy in an Army Radio interview.
As all at the Conference were reminded, was it not Netanyahu who had deflected any criticism for October 7 arguing that the IDF and intelligence services failed to warm him of Hamas’ planned invasion.
“I was not warned” has been his defense since October 8……
However, we now know this was NOT true. The head of Israeli military intelligence’s Research Division at the time had sent the prime minister a number of letters warning exactly this and the then-IDF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, repeatedly sought to meet with him in the days leading up to October 7 to warn him about the severe security risks posed by Israel’s internal divisions, but was frequently rebuffed. So too then Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar, who too gave multiple warnings to Netanyahu about Hamas and the rising risk of war in the months and days leading up to October 7.
Now we can understand how Netanyahu and those around him ignored the warnings because they are doing it again – in the open – by publicly ignoring the warning of the head of the IDF that the “military lacks sufficient manpower” thus impairing its ability to fight. Not only are they ignoring the message but are attacking the messenger. They are doing so to preserve power at the expense of the people.
Is there any doubt that under a Netanyahu government the people of Israel are facing a ‘Clear and present danger’.
This was reinforced by Likud stalwart and former Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein who gave a sharp address at the Conference titled “A Half-People’s Army” where he criticized the unequal burden of military service. He advocated for “equality in service,” demanding that all Israeli citizens be subject to the same security service laws at age 18, and warned that the current system places an unsustainable burden on the nation’s reservists. As possibly a sign of a changing political landscape, Edelstein announced last month that he was leaving the party and would not run in the upcoming Likud primary.
All must Serve. Speaker of the Knesset, MK Yuli Edelstein stated that Israel’s current conscription model is unsustainable arguing that civic duty and security service must be mandatory for all citizens. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcy3tVPmsY&t=6s)
The message of the conference:
There is an election coming up or as Gadi Eisencott expressed it in historical terms that we again “stand at a fateful point” and: “We are warned!”
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
