Strip-search: 9 things to know for August 14

1. Virtual reality: There are increasing signs that Israel and Gaza’s rulers may be on their way to some sort of deal that will return calm to the border region without going to war.

• A senior Israeli official tells the LA Times that a deal with the Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas is “virtually done.”
• The report comes after Israeli officials pointed out that the last two days had seen a halt in cross-border arson attacks and as Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is huddling with security officials to discuss easing restrictions on the Gaza Strip following a decrease in Palestinian violence.
• An official said reopening the Kerem Shalom crossing will be considered during the noon meeting, as well as returning the permitted fishing zone to six nautical miles from the current three, if the calm continues on the border, ToI’s Judah Ari Gross reports.
• However, Haaretz reports that there is “doubt” within the security establishment that a long-term deal with Hamas can be reached. The paper reports that officials prefer a return to the understanding reached following the 2014 war, which focuses on easing the humanitarian situation there.

2. Anarchy in Gaza: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi met in secret in May to discuss Gaza, Israel’s Channel 10 reports, citing American officials.

• Among the subjects discussed, according to the report, was an arrangement in the Gaza Strip that would see the return of the Palestinian Authority to the coastal enclave.
• While one might think Israel would support replacing the terror group running the Strip with the PA, with whom Israel enjoys security cooperation, Israel Hayom reports that some Israeli politicians are raising an outcry over the idea of PA President Mahmoud Abbas running the enclave.
• “Don’t let Abu Mazen return to Gaza,” reads the paper’s top headline, using Abbas’s nom de guerre.
• Leading the charge is Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, who tells the Likud mouthpiece that key elements of the arrangement would be a threat to Israel’s security, specifically allowing a safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza, which he says would be a “security threat” and affect the “demographic balance” between Israel and the Palestinians.
• Katz, who until recently was pushing for a Gaza seaport on an island off the coast of the enclave, doesn’t say whether he prefers the Hamas terror group remain in charge, thinks Israel should take the reins back, or perhaps thinks anarchy is the way to go.

3. Defending the Golan: Liberman caught some flak Sunday after claiming that all 168 Gazans killed on the border fence were members of Hamas, and he eventually walked back his claim, clarifying that they were living under Hamas, which is not the same thing at all.

• What he’s catching even more flak over is the possible appointment of Yair Golan as IDF chief, after a group of over 100 families of fallen soldiers submitted a petition to Liberman calling for Golan, a former deputy chief of staff, not to be considered for the top military position over comments he made in 2016 seen as comparing trends in Israel to pre-World War II Germany, as well as remarks he made in 2006 while commander of the army’s West Bank division calling for soldiers to to take risks in order to protect Palestinian civilians.
• Yedioth Ahronoth’s right-wing columnist Shlomo Pyroterkovsky calls the protest against Golan justified — though says he should still be considered.
• In the same paper, Yossi Yehoshua praises Liberman and others for pushing back against the campaign.
• “After 38 years of service as a combat soldier and senior officer, Golan is facing false accusations that claim ‘he prefers the lives of the enemy over IDF soldiers,’” he writes, though he adds that Liberman and others should also defend religious right-wing officers life Ofer Winter when they make comments reflecting their worldview.
• Looking at the four leading candidates, Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer says political intrigues are not new when such nominations come up, but “new depths have been plumbed” in the campaign against Golan.
• Even right-wing Israel Hayom distances itself from the anti-Golan crowd. “The campaign is factually and ethically bankrupt,” columnist Yoav Limor writes.

4. For Pete’s sake: The detaining of US journalist at Peter Beinart also gets wide coverage in the Hebrew press. While Americans and others have been complaining for a while about ill treatment at the border, the issue has failed to get much traction until now.

• In an op-ed for the Forward, Beinart writes about the kafkaesque interrogation over his political views and activities, and mentions his holding cell was filled with “black, brown and non-Jewish visitors.” He claims his detention is one more proof that Netanyahu is being emboldened by US President Donald Trump to take more authoritarian steps.
• “Israel, like America, is getting uglier. And yet I can’t imagine not coming here. I’ll keep doing so until they bar me outright,” he writes.
• Not so, retorted Netanyahu in a statement, calling the detainment a mistake. Unsurprisingly, the claim doesn’t do much to tamp down anger.
• “The multitude of cases of detainments and interrogations at the airport is untolerable,” Tzipi Livni is quoting saying in Yedioth.
• Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev writes that even if one thought Israel wouldn’t be so dumb as to detain a well-known figure like Beinart, they would be wrong: “As far as its hasbara [Israel advocacy] efforts are concerned, Israel has been gleefully cutting itself off at the kneecaps with a rapid-fire machine gun. The Israeli prime minister, government and Knesset don’t even try anymore to mask their growing disdain for democracy, contempt for the rule of law, intolerance for dissent, scorn for human rights, hatred of the media and condescension towards American Jews, especially liberal critics like Beinart.”

5. Hostile hostel: Beinart and some others that the Shin Bet might detain are also included on a blacklist by a little-known hostel in Jerusalem, banning everyone on it as “haters of Israel” accused of “crimes committed against the Jewish people.”

• Included on the list are the staff of this very news publication as well as some others, like Haaretz and CNN, as well as more baffling choices like Bette Midler and the ADL.

The Jerusalem Post, which does not make the list (though editor Yaakov Katz does), says when contacted, the hostel hung up on them.

6. Trolling the peaceniks: Peace Now also made the list (along with anyone who supports them) but someone in the settlements is happy with the dovish anti-settlement group, or at least expertly trolling them.

• On Twitter, settler leader Yigal Dilmoni points out that on Waze, a West Bank hilltop that will become home to dozens of Israeli families as compensation for the razing of the Netiv Ha’avot outpost has been renamed on Waze as a “neighborhood at the initiative of Peace Now.”

7. Shot down: The apparently very right-wing hostel may want to add the Israel Police to the list after it had the audacity to reject Elor Azaria for a gun license, the Ynet news website reports.

• Azaria, better known as the soldier who shot and killed an unarmed and wounded Palestinian assailant, had claimed that his life was in danger and he received death threats, but unsurprisingly, police found no reason to put a firearm back in his hands, the news site reports.

8. Arms to the UAE? Who is getting Israeli weapons? According to Qatari outlet Khaleej Online, it’s the UAE, which signed an arms deal with Israel after top officials from the emirate toured Israel, including military bases.

• The IDF tells ToI it knows nothing of the report.
• Arab affairs correspondent Adam Rasgon notes that the outlet isn’t exactly known as sticking to the truth, having a history of spreading dubious reports. Most likely, he says, the story is part of Qatar’s battle with other Gulf states.

9. I did not lay that wreath: UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under fire after a report he took part in a ceremony honoring one of the masterminds of the Munich Olympics attack.

• Corbyn’s excuse, that he was there but not involved in wreath laying, is taken as the modern equivalent of Bill Clinton’s lame “I didn’t inhale.”

In any case, blogger Guido Fawkes says he has a video of Corbyn saying he did lay a wreath.