Get better soon, or else: 8 things to know for July 18

1. There are tentative signs that the summer of flaming devices from Gaza may be coming to a close, though whether it is by war or a strategic decision to knock it off remains to be seen.

• In war and diplomacy, as they say, perception is everything; thus it’s little surprise that Israel is doing its darnedest to show Hamas that it’s serious about going to war over the issue. A drill simulating an invasion of Gaza may indeed have been planned in advance, but the decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister to make a big show of observing the drill is likely designed to send a very loud and saber-rattling message.
• “Patience is running thin: Calm now or an operation in Gaza,” reads the main headline of Israel Hayom, the closest thing the government has to a mouthpiece.
• “It’s doubtful if Gaza understands this, but Israel’s patience has expired,” reads the paper’s main top news story. “A few more kites and balloons in the next few days and the sides will descend into a swift and wide escalation of violence.”

2. Hamas seems to be getting the message anyway, though from Egypt, with reports that the group has agreed to scale back the kite and balloon launches it claims it has no control over.

• Palestinian sources are quoted telling the al-Quds daily that Hamas leadership had decided to take action against the flaming kites “to prevent dragging Gaza into a war.” They also said multiple parties, including Egypt, had told Hamas that the kites must be stopped “to prevent giving Israel an excuse to launch a major military offensive.”
• ToI’s Adam Rasgon points out, though, that the report does not mention balloons, but only kites.
• Yedioth reports that Egypt told Hamas it had a few days to “bring the launches to a complete halt — or at least cut them out as much as possible,” after Hamas complained that it could not stop them completely without losing street cred.
• “Hamas can’t stop it all at once or it will look to Gazans and its other supporters like it folded,” the paper quotes a Gazan source saying. “So it needs to do it gradually.”
• Meanwhile, a group that says it represents those launching the devices says it won’t be cowed.
• “We hereby declare that our non-violent actions will continue and even more intensively, until we meet the demands of the Palestinian people to remove the blockade,” the group says in a written statement, according to Haaretz.

3. Haaretz’s print edition leads off with an analysis by Amos Harel laying out clearly the paper’s position that flaming kites and balloons are not something to go to war over.

• Harel writes that the government, which has taken a hardline stance both to win political points and to try and scare Hamas into submission, is now becoming convinced by its own rhetoric, overriding even the military brass’s professional opinion that this is not a war Israel needs.
• “There doesn’t seem to be even one person among the top security brass who believes that the incendiary kites and other devices justify going to war. Aside from their desire to be reelected, it’s reasonable to assume that this would also be the stance of most of the members of the cabinet. But politicians read the opinion polls that indicate that there is major frustration over the continuing blazes on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, and they feel as if the ground is shaking under their feet.”
• Harel points to the melodramatic coverage as something helping push the politicians toward war (despite not a single person suffering even a scratch from them), including the reports of a falcon that may have been sent with flammable materials and a balloon with a possible incendiary device that landed in a playground, and that’s just on Tuesday.

4. Indeed, the balloon in the playground gets wide coverage, landing on the front pages of all the major tabloids (Maariv puts a balloon that landed in an empty school yard on its front page).

• “The balloons aren’t threatening just fields, but actual people,” reports Yedioth Ahronoth, noting that kids were in a kindergarten next to the playground when it landed and were only saved by “ a miracle.”
• The falcon meanwhile, gets local and international attention for its downright strangeness, with Israel backers trying to use it to show the depravity of the Gazans.
• Despite there being no proof the bird was actually sent by a Gazan falconer and didn’t just get caught in strings attached to a kite or balloon, Israel was quick to point a finger at Hamas and threaten to file a complaint over the breach of international treaties regarding using animals in terrorism.
• When pressed by ToI as to what treaties those were, government sources were unable to come up with an answer. Google also provided no help.
• Pressed for a response, PETA (which just this week put out a video from Natalie Portman comparing animal slaughter to the Holocaust) tweets out a diplomatic “animals want no part of your silly war.”

As an animal-protection organization, PETA notes that animals claim allegiance to no nation, don't choose sides, and can only rely on human beings to show them mercy, and it is unacceptable to use them as weapons of war.

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— PETA (@peta) July 17, 2018

5. With Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on his way to Israel for a visit Wednesday, attention has once again turned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support for European nationalists who are often accused of anti-Semitism.

• As ToI’s story notes: “The trip is a striking sign of burgeoning ties between Netanyahu and the controversial Hungarian statesman, who has been accused of playing up anti-Semitic stereotypes, and comes following reports of Israeli efforts to lobby the US to end isolation of the man considered a symbol of Europe’s move toward the hard right.”
• In Haaretz, though, op-ed writer B. Michael writes an open letter, slamming the Hungarian leader as an “anti-Semite, racist, Islamophobe, demagogue, provocateur and liar.”
• He also uses the letter to get in potshots at Israeli Jews, writing that few would remind Orban of the hated liberal philanthropist George Soros.
• “Don’t worry, these are not Jews of the type you despise. Only very few ‘Soroses’ have remained here. On the other hand, we have masses of Judaites. They call themselves Jews, but in fact they are far more similar to your electorate. And if you conduct an open, heart-to-heart discussion with them, you’ll really feel at home.”
• In case Orban doesn’t read English or Hebrew, Meretz head Tamar Zandberg tweet it out in Hungarian: “Whoever praises Nazi collaborators, chases after human rights groups and domestic opposition — is not wanted here,” she writes, referring to Orban’s embrace of Nazi-era leader Miklos Horthy.

Őket, akik dícsérik a nácikkal együttműködő vezetőket, antiszemitákkal szövetkeznek,üldözik az emberi jogi szervezeteket és az ellenzéket az országukban – nem akarjuk itt látni.

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— תמר זנדברג (@tamarzandberg) July 18, 2018

• Israel Hayom, though, reports on two documents that show how much Orban has done for Israel and the Jews, such as reopen synagogues and refuse to condemn the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem.
• Indeed, as ToI’s Yaakov Schwartz writes from Budapest, the Jewish community is actually excited by Orban’s visit to Israel.

6. Netanyahu’s ties with US President Donald Trump are also getting a second look in light of the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• “A weak America against Putin is bad for the democratic powers, bad for the world and bad for Israel,” Yedioth Ahronoth’s Orly Azulay writes.
• Netanyahu, though, was one of the few people to praise Trump and Putin after their meeting, especially because it seems like Russia is acting to keep Iran away from the Syrian border with Israel.
• As CNN analyst Ian Lee notes: “While most if not all of the US national security establishment views Russia as a major threat, Israel sees things very differently. It is very happy with what it sees as a successful strategic relationship between Putin and Netanyahu.”
• In Haaretz, Chemi Shalev notes that while Netanyahu’s closeness with Trump and Putin is designed to help protect Israel, his open praise after the summit went a bit too far: “The plaudits for Trump immediately after his dismal showing in Helsinki are perceived as assistance for a disgraced friend. They depict Israel as a country oblivious to the world and blind to troubles just beyond its nose. It casts Israel as a central cog in the deviant Putin-Trump axis, the true nature of which has yet to be revealed.”

7. Even Fox News did feature some criticism of Trump after the summit, but one won’t see the same from Israel Hayom, where columnist Eldad Beck not only defends the president’s ties with Russia, but slams critics as hypocrites.

• “The same liberal left that tells us we should talk to Hamas and Hezbollah, makes pilgrimages to the grave of the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, fiercely defends the Iran nuclear deal and crowned Obama for renewing ties with Cuba now lashes out at Trump for ‘selling his soul to the war criminal and human rights violator’ Putin,” he writes.

8. While everyone was watching Helsinki and Gazan kites, the Knesset very nearly snuck through a bill that would have allowed seeping internet censorship, reports ToI’s Raoul Wootliff. Only thanks to a last -minute intervention by Netanyahu was the “Facebook incitement bill” quashed Wednesday, after ToI found out it went far beyond just flagging posts that could lead to terror attacks.

• “While the initial proposal was aimed at tackling terror incitement on social media, the bill authorized in committee on Sunday for final plenum votes would have allowed for censorship of ‘any website that the public or a section of the public has access to, even if that access requires a password or code, payment or no payment, or whether the site is based in Israel or abroad,’ Wootliff reports.
• The final version of the bill, he reports, “would have … given the government authority, with the permission of an administrative court, to block any content from any site deemed to violate any section of Israel’s penal code.”