Kafka with a kite: 8 things to know for June 15

1. Lest one thought the Gaza border protests would have fizzled after Nakba Day, or Naksa Day or any other day, they have turned out to be sorely mistaken. It is now the day after Ramadan, the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, and new protests are expected yet again.

• On Thursday, Hamas threatened to send 5,000 incendiary or explosive kites and balloons into Israel during the Friday protests, which is a sentence you would have had to be on LSD to write 10 years ago.
• Adding to the Kafkaesque situation is the fact that many of the balloons appear to be condoms, and some of them are explicitly for parties and well-wishing, like a booby trapped balloon with the message “I <3 you,” launched at Israel Friday morning. Right back atcha, guys.
• Unlike previous balloon and kite attacks, some of these according to Hamas will have the ability to go as far as 40 kilometers, reportedly leading police to warn citizens against touching random balloons and kites they find on the street, which is always good policy.
• As of this writing, however, only a smattering of balloons or kites had been launched, with no major damage or fires, though that could change in an instant. In the meantime, though, the threat remains just words floating in the ether.

2. Two incidents of the past days of the army shooting warning shots from the air at Gazans preparing kites or balloons are seen as a change in policy by the IDF, a sign that it is taking the threat more seriously that before.

• “The grace period is over,” Yedioth Ahronoth writes, calling Friday the first real test of the policy.
• The move comes after the government and army have come under fire for not dealing with the kites and balloons as weapons instead of toys. A cartoon in a popular national religious weekly last week, for instance, showed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman dressed in a fireman’s outfit, but stopping up the firehose as a blaze burned in the background.
• Telegraphing the anger of southern residents over the situation, Yedioth columnist Gilad Sharon calls for “terrorists to be assassinated” and money to be withheld to pay for the damage, comparing Gaza to a viper’s nest that needs to be “taken care of.”
• Sharon also warns that Israelis may get the idea of starting to send kites and balloons the other way, an idea that was already tried to disastrous effect.
• Hadashot news, however, reports that the army is mulling not just firing warning shots, but actually shooting to kill the kite and balloon launchers caught in the act, though military analyst Roni Daniel notes that with drones not very accurate and snipers unable to reach that far into the Strip, the idea is problematic, to say nothing of the poor optics of shooting a kid flying a kite.

3. It’s not only the right that’s critical of Liberman, whose hardline view that humanitarian aid will not help the fight against terror runs in direct contradiction with the army’s own beliefs, putting him at odds with the military he controls, Haaretz analyst Yossi Verter notes.

• Verter gives an inside look at a recent security cabinet meeting at which ministers were presented with the humanitarian aid plan. Quizzed about it by fellow minister (and neighbor) Zeev Elkin, Liberman seemed like a character in a Laurel and Hardy bit.

Liberman said that he supported the viewpoint of the army as it was presented to the security cabinet.
So we can take it that you are in favor of providing relief unconditionally, Elkin inferred.
No way, Liberman shot back. We don’t give anything without getting something from Hamas.
Elkin persisted: Just now the army told us that it’s in favor of offering relief immediately, so what do you say?
I am 100 percent behind the IDF, Liberman declared.
So you are in favor of all the relief that was proposed, Elkin said, not letting up.
No, the defense minister replied. I am against.

4. Israel may have come under harsh reprimand at the UN earlier this week over Gaza violence, but Israeli diplomats are hopeful that what seemed to be support for condemning Hamas as well heralds a sea change at the world body.

• “This is proof that the automatic majority against Israel is not a given and that diplomatic work alongside our allies shows results,” Israel Hayom quotes Danny Danon saying, as Israel heaped praise on US Ambassador Nikki Haley for leading the charge in Israel’s defense.

It’s a new day at the @UN. We were proud that more countries were on
the right side of history yesterday, than weren’t, when it came to
condemning Hamas and holding them responsible in Gaza. Read more here:https://t.co/DtLBy1gMDa

— U.S. Mission to the UN (@USUN) June 14, 2018

• Another person praising the US’s Israel-friendly stance is Haaretz’s Nehemia Shtrasler, who pens a rare defense of US President Donald Trump as getting the harsh and brutish way the world works better than Barack Obama did.
• “Pundits refuse to understand that the world is aggressive and cruel, and if you want to achieve something, you have to employ force and threats – the military and economic powers of a superpower. They don’t understand that a policy of appeasement doesn’t work with evil terrorist regimes like North Korea and Iran,” he writes.

5. North Korea may actually be one place where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Trump administration are not on the same page, according to a report by Barak Ravid for Israel’s Channel 10 and the US news site Axios exposing a secret Israeli cable on the Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un.

• “Regardless of the smiles in the summit many in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. Congress doubt that North Korea is sincere in its intentions. Our assessment is that regardless of President Trump’s statements about quick changes that are expected in North Korean policy, the road to real and substantive change, if it ever happens, will be long and slow,” Ravid quotes from the communique.

6. In Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is spending his day giving Netanyahu fresh Twitter fodder to prove the country’s evil intentions. Days after saying he never called to push the Jews into the sea (which came on the heels of him calling Israel a cancer that needed to be eradicated) he now says again that Israel is done for.

• “The #ZionistRegime will not last. All historical experiences imply that with absolute certainty. Undoubtedly the Zionist regime will perish in the not-so-far future,” he tweets, capping an anti-israel tweet storm.

Like all free countries, people of #Palestine–real Palestinians– should be polled to determine the political system of Palestine; that governing body will decide on future of immigrants in Palestine. There's no other solution and this leads to elimination of the Zionist regime.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 15, 2018

7. Despite the ayatollah’s genocidal thoughts, at least one Israeli is rooting for Iran at the World Cup — TOI founding editor David Horovitz:

• “ I’m hoping the Iranians do well, too — just not too well. Well enough, that is, to force regime-controlled Iranian television to show the folks at home what’s going on in the free world (or at least Putin’s version thereof); well enough, for instance, to ratchet up the pressure on the regime to let Iranian women into its stadiums; just not well enough to bring domestic credit to the ayatollahs,” he writes, noting that some Iranians even agreed to be interviewed by an Israeli reporter.
• Perhaps that’s why Khamenei also called Friday for Iranians to stop traveling abroad.

#Iran’s leader demands Iranian people to abandon “unnecessary foreign travels”: One of the habits that is popular among some people & should be abandoned is the unnecessary recreational travels abroad. pic.twitter.com/jrx7M0zwnd

— Abas Aslani (@AbasAslani) June 15, 2018

8. The Duke of Cambridge’s schedule to Israel and the region was released earlier this week in painstaking detail, except for a couple points: Where he will watch his beloved footy (likely his hotel room in Jerusalem) and whether he will visit the Old City.

• Shedding a bit of light on the eternal question, the Western Wall’s rabbi told reporters Thursday that it was being discussed, and an Israeli official confirmed it is on the tentative itinerary.
• Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Prince William will also visit the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of St. John the Baptist, and that the palace apparently did not publicize the visit for fear of blowback.
• “The palace is trying to walk between raindrops and avoid politicizing the visit,” the paper reports it was told by sources in Jerusalem.
• However, as TOI’s Raphael Ahren notes, it may be too late for that: The royal itinerary already raised some eyebrows by implying that the palace considers Jerusalem’s Old City as located in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”