Heavy hands: 6 things to know for October 7

1. Mad about Abbas: With the Gaza border region possibly descending into war, the threats from all around are coming as quickly as the rounds of violence.

• After Israel reportedly tried to stave off the threats of war by allowing Qatari fuel into the Strip, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made his most pronounced threat yet to cut off money to Gaza, according to Hadashot news.
• The halt of some $96 million that the PA sends monthly to the Gaza Strip could drive a desperate and cash-strapped Hamas toward conflict with Israel, security officials told the TV news channel.
• The Israel Hayom daily reports that Cairo, which has been working to keep violence from getting out of hand, is now threatening to leave the table over Abbas’s heavy-handed pressure tactics.
• “If Egypt stops getting involved, there’s good chance there will be a military confrontation in Gaza. Hamas will turn its pressure toward Israel,” the paper quotes an Egyptian security source saying.

2. Fired up: Meanwhile, southern residents are starting to put more pressure on the government to do something about the daily protests at the Gaza border, which are often of a fiery nature.

• “Every weekend and also in the middle of the week we are living in a cloud of smoke,” a resident of border kibbutz Kerem Shalom tells Yedioth Ahronoth. “The problem isn’t with the army. It’s with the decision makers. How can they sleep at night when we, residents of the Gaza border region, are living in this chaotic situation for more than half a year? This is Israeli deterrence?”
• The lead editorial in the Haaretz daily also takes aim at the decision-makers, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for failing to answer what it says are conciliatory messages from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar published in an interview with Yedioth on Friday.
• “Netanyahu has a tendency to disparage Palestinian conciliatory messages in general and changes in tone by Palestinian leaders in particular. This time too, he will probably put all his energy into justifying his inaction in advancing an agreement. Instead of seeing the moderate messages as an opportunity for a cease-fire and rapprochement, Netanyahu and his government are acting like they don’t hear,” the paper charges.

3. Sara in the hot seat: Netanyahu may have other things on his mind. On Friday, he was busy being grilled by police, and on Sunday, his wife will be in the hot seat as her trial over allegations she misused state funds for hot takeout trays gets underway in Jerusalem.

• Though the press has covered the Netanyahu’s trials and legal tribulations with lurid curiosity, the kickoff of the trial garners little more than a few mentions here and there Sunday morning, overshadowed by Gaza, the confirmation of United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and a flag-waving protester tackled by Netanyahu’s guards during a protest Saturday night.
• Video of the incident shows the man, a former Shin Bet agent, blocking Netanyahu’s convoy, before a security officer bum-rushes him and throws him to the ground like a lineman sacking a quarterback.
• On social media, some point out that the guy was not exactly Yitzhak Rabin assassin Yigal Amir and the tackle was a bit excessive. But others note that stopping a convoy could be a serious security risk if there was somebody who had more nefarious aims, which is the whole point of traveling with so much security.

4. To vote or not to vote: The press is also beginning to speculate about early elections being called, with a fresh Knesset session just a week and a half away.

• Israel Radio cites several senior government figures saying Netanyahu still has not made up his mind about calling a snap poll.
• Haaretz’s Yossi Verter, whose fly-on-the-wall reporting can sometimes stretch the limits of credulity if taken literally, writes that all Netanyahu’s advisers are telling him to not waste any time in calling elections or forcing a coalition crisis to make sure it happens.
• “There is no reason to drag things out. If it’s fast, it will not be ugly. The Knesset’s winter session, they agreed, will in any case be conducted in the shadow of an election,” he writes.
• In Israel Hayom, columnist Yehuda Shlesinger writes that nobody in the coalition actually wants new elections, and if elections are called, they would like to build the same coalition again after elections.
• But they will still come early, because of distrust among the coalition partners about the possibility of new elections, among other reasons, he says. “Don’t search for logic in politics,” he quips, quoting an aphorism.

5. Gordian Kavanought Despite having really no connection to Israel, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were dramatic enough that they dominated Hebrew language media Saturday night and Sunday morning.

• And despite the lack of connection, some Israeli pundits still find it fitting to comment on what the whole sordid affair says about America.
• “America has gone off the rails,” muses Yedioth’s Sever Plotzker in one such column, marveling at the Democrats for getting caught in trying to torpedo Kavanaugh over a sexual assault that occurred 36 years ago. “How did they turn a parliamentary-ideological battle against Kavanaugh into a story from 36 years ago? This is supposed to be the party of Barack Obama, that knows how to separate the signal from the noise and to stand for the good of the many against momentary partisan interests and dealings.”
• Actually connecting the Kavanaugh saga to Israel, Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev writes that anti-Netanyahu protesters are linked to anti-Kavanaugh protesters with a shared sense of helplessness against what they know is wrong.
• “The Israeli left, and a chunk of its center, have been living for many years with the same kind of indignation and outrage that many Americans must have felt when [Senator Susan] Collins and [Senator Joe] Manchin gave the GOP the votes needed to get Kavanaugh confirmed, despite Christine Blasey Ford’s un-refuted allegations that Kavanaugh tried to rape her in high school,” he writes.

6. Deal of the moment: Israel has a much more meaty connection to the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan, withering on a shelf somewhere.

• Preempting the White House, Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies says it will roll out its own plan on Monday, at a conference with Minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leaders Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid on hand to respond to it.
• A flyer about the event has few specifics, but Hadashot news reports on some details of the plan, which is apparently designed just to get talks rolling and start the process of “separating from the Palestinians.”
• The plan includes Israel recognizing the West Bank security barrier as the basis for this separation, with 65 percent of the West Bank being set aside for a Palestinian state, and East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods as well as settlement blocs remaining as part of Israel. It also calls for a building freeze in isolated settlements as well as continued Israeli security control of the Jordan Valley, and for Gaza and Jerusalem to be dealt with at a later date.
• According to the report, the plan is backed by former IDF chiefs Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi, though neither are prepared to state so publicly yet.