Tweet, then meet: 7 things to know for July 31

1. It could be too early to call it the Trump doctrine, but a negotiating pattern appears to be emerging regarding American enemies in which the US president first threatens hellfire, and then opens a window for negotiations. He did it with North Korea and on Monday night he seemed to do it again with Iran, telling reporters he would be willing to meet Iran’s Rouhani any time, with no preconditions.

• “As the President and his subordinates adopt fearsome rhetoric and escalate the long showdown with the Islamic Republic, they appear to be trying to create the same kind of leverage that appears to have helped get Kim to the table,” writes CNN analyst Stephen Collinson.
• Iran, though, is not North Korea and the gambit was quickly dismissed by both sides, with the White House National Security Council saying there would be no changes in policy without tangible change from Iran, and a Rouhani adviser saying that Iran had a precondition — returning to the nuclear deal — before any talks could take place.
• Perhaps in recognition of the fairly low hopes for actual talks, the news gets fairly small play in the Israeli Hebrew press.
• All three major dailies bury their stories deep inside their pages, though Yedioth Ahonroth calls the announcement a surprise.
• In Haaretz’s website, Zvi Bar’el writes that Trump seems more desperate to meet than Rouhani, citing the Iranian claim that the US president asked to meet eight times and was rejected eight times.
• “It seems Trump was the one to blink [first] when he made clear he was willing to discuss a ‘real deal’ with Iran,” he writes in a column originally published before Trump’s latest overture.

2. Some, however, see the crumble of the rial wreaking havoc on Iran’s economy even before new sanctions kick in creating enough pressure to push Tehran back to the table.

• Israel’s Hadashot news channel led its main newscast Monday night with the rial’s collapse, and analyst Ehud Yaari claimed Majlis speaker Ali Larijani had said they should consider talks if everyone is on board.
• It’s not clear where Yaari got his info from, though his report did match almost word for word some unsourced tweets from a few days ago, though its not clear how they would have privileged information. Iran researcher Yossi Manshour tells me a search for any info of the sort in Persian came up with nothing, casting further doubts over the veracity of the info.
• Yaari also reported on speculation of Oman being used as a backchannel, with the Omani foreign minister meeting with Iranian counterpart Zarif and then flying to the US for talks. While Muscat was the location of secret talks that kicked off the talks that led to the Iran nuke deal, the evidence is circumstantial at best.
• What is clear, though is Israel and America’s cheering of the economic collapse as a window for regime change. Analysts on both sides of the Atlantic note, though, that having transparent backing from either country will only tar the Iranian protesters as foreign agents.
• “Iranians may want change, but the collapse of their economy, society, and state is surely not the kind of change they have in mind. Besides, history has shown that there is no better way to discredit a legitimate protest movement than by linking it to a nefarious foreign enemy; this is a well-rehearsed move in the Iranian regime’s playbook. Full-throated U.S. support for these protesters such as the administration is voicing could be their death sentence (perhaps literally),” write Jonah Shepp in New York Magazine.
• In Haaretz, Gabriel Mitchel and Alex Vatanka say “there could not be a worse messenger” than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made direct video appeals to the Iranian people, even if his message is correct.
• They do however, support fostering deeper Iranian-Israeli dialogue at the grassroots level.
• “Rather than ceding the platform to Netanyahu – an unpopular figure in Iran – Israelis must seize this opportunity and develop their own dialogue with the Iranian people. Similarly, Iranians need to be ready to respond to their Israeli counterparts, and engage in a serious conversation about their vision for the future,” they write.

3. Israeli analysts may not place much faith in Netanyahu and Trump’s ability to control Iran, but Russia actually does have some sway, so Russian ambassador Anatoly Viktorov telling Channel 10 news Monday night that Moscow can’t tell Iran to leave Syria completely does make some waves.

• The international press takes more notice than the local press though, especially with talks between Russia, Iran and Turkey taking place in Sochi ahead of a fresh round of Syria talks in Astana.
• Haaretz does run a front page story onan IDF report looking at scenarios for war with Iran proxy Hezbollah in the north, with the upshot of thousands forced to evacuate and only middling missile defense.
• The paper reports that Israelis have unrealistically high expectations for Iron Dome being able to shoot down any missiles after its wide success in wars with Gaza, but Hezbollah’s arsenal will prove a larger challenge and protecting people will mean not just having them run to bomb shelters, but running away from the border region, with some 78,000 expected to have to evacuate.
• “A clash up north will force Israel to cope with hundreds of rockets a day, and will do much more damage to the home front, both in the north and in the center of the country,” the paper’s Amos Harel writes.

4. Since apparently war is just a joke, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweets out that’s he’s seen fewer people leaving Syria than the Labor Party, as the opposition faction continues to fracture, now over a sexual harassment scandal regarding suspended politician Eitan Broshi.

• In Yedioth, Broshi is quoted accusing party leader Avi Gabbay of carrying out a “political assassination” for suspending him and calling him a sexual harasser, and there’s a surprising amount of understanding for the alleged harasser and criticism of Gabbay’s handling of the situation in the press.
• “One can understand Broshi, who threatened to sue Gabbay for defamation,” writes Yedioth political commentator Sima Kadmon. “I’m not sure that the way Gabbay has handled Broshi will work out in his favor. He needs to hope that more accusers come forward in the coming days to justify his harsh move and the harsh things he said about his party member.”
• Israel Hayom’s Gideon Alon also accuses new opposition leader Tzipi Livni of acting “in haste” in calling for Broshi to resign.
• Haaretz’s Carolina Landsman calls Gabbay’s conduct “puzzling, indicating recklessness and a lack of leadership.”

5. The Knesset isn’t even in session anyway, making the suspension meaningless (though committee meetings continue), and media speculation that the parliament may dissolve for new elections once it reconvenes in October has ramped up thanks to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, whose apparent election campaign has gotten increasing attention.

• A few days ago Kahlon put a wraparound front page ad on Israel Hayom (which media watchdog Seventh Eye said could have cost the Kulanu party up to NIS 170,000), on Monday he got in trouble for recording a video of him doing a lame version of the Kiki challenge, apparently to pimp for himself and the hard work he’s doing, and he’s begun putting campaign ads all over the country.
• Calcalist’s Zvi Zrahiya reports the campaign is costing hundreds of thousands of shekels, with the money coming from a stipend the state gives parties for campaigns based on how many Knesset seats they have, with the party saying it plans to continue to push them until elections whenever they are (with 10 seats, Kulanu could leave the coalition and fell the government anytime it wants).
• “The point of the campaign is to feed the public with a spoonful of the finance minister’s achievements and to rekindle interest in him, since right now, according to the polls, Kulanu will get seven seats in the next Knesset, in a best case scenario.”
• Haaretz’s Nehemia Shtrasler notes that while Kahlon first became popular on bread and butter socioeconomic issues, he’s now portraying himself as the defender of the country as the funder of the army, even though his job as finance minister is to make sure the army doesn’t spend too much.
• “Kahlon wants to create the impression that he is the one caring for the army, before Netanyahu or Liberman can. That’s why he is ready to transfer NIS 15 billion to the army for a missile defense plan. He’s presenting it as if it’s a personal decision, as if it is his personal money, though it is the taxpayers’ money and the decision needs to be made by the government,” he writes.

6. It’s not just Kahlon. In Yedioth’s op-ed page, Nadav Eyal writes that the nation-state law, and the way it’s being presented as a test meant to paint the left as disloyal, is designed to help Likud and Netanyahu once elections are called: “This is the classic way Netanyahu has managed to garner his majority,” he writes.

• Yet opposition is still continuing to mount, with 78 former top police officials signing a letter Monday against the bill, specifically how it puts down the Druze minority. One of the signatories, former commish Assaf Hefetz, tells Radio 103 that he signed it after reading the bill in the paper and the letter went around a WhatsApp group of former police brass, which sounds a bit less impressive.
• Monday also saw a Druze officer say he would quit the army and call on other members of the community not to join up in protest. Sometime later, a second Druze officer quit, according to Haaretz.
• “I’m not prepared to be a part of this. I’m also joining the struggle, I’ve decided to stop serving this country,” the paper reports Shaidy Zaidan wrote on Facebook.
• In the New Yorker, Bernard Avishai goes through the whole nation-state debate and the long history of the religious-national kulturkampf behind it and Orthodox hegemony over state religious institutions, going all the way back to David Ben-Gurion and his decision to decline a liberal-democratic constitution for narrow political reasons.
• “Ironically, had the nation-state law actually taken seriously the radical idea of a Jewish nation—the Hebrew civil society that cultural Zionists like the younger Ben-Gurion had once aspired to, and Hebrew cosmopolitans of Tel Aviv live out every day—it might have created a democratic revolution in Israeli law. Israel would then define national Jewish life as vested in the experiences of language, common popular culture, and geography, and, for all the predictable tensions, the state might gradually assimilate willing members of its Arab minority, asylum seekers, and others. This is just what the Druze are calling for,” he writes.

7. Both major Hebrew print tabloids lead off with another campaign ad, though one a bit more opaque: an Education Ministry plan to cut down on homework. Though kids — who would surely make Education Minister Naftali Bennett prime minister — can’t vote, parents who have to spend their nights doing homework with their kids are expected to also appreciate the news.

• “Homework was put on the negotiating table after criticism was heard that it can become an unreasonable burden” from both kids and parents, Yedioth Ahronoth reports.
• Israel Hayom reports that teachers are being told to give kids in first grade only 10 minutes a day, with each grade adding 10 minutes until sixth graders are doing about an hour a day.
• Teaching academic Anat ben-Shabbat writes in the paper that the reform should go even further and do away with the homework altogether: “Research shows that homework doesn’t give students anything extra, and the reality is that many times it steals time or comes at the expense of social time, and the students aren’t investing in them what the teacher expects.”