War or condom nation: 8 things to know for June 21

1. While the US administration is reversing course on a deterrent policy seemingly everybody agrees was disastrous, Israel is pushing ahead with its own deterrent policy, threatening war with Gaza in increasingly shrill tones.

• It’s not clear if Israel’s threats to take the fight against kites all the way to war are just a warning aimed at making Hamas reverse course or an actual policy prescription, though most analysts agree war is a definite possibility.
• “Israel and Hamas are now in a completely different reality than the one that prevailed in the Gaza Strip for almost four years since the end of Operation Protective Edge,” Amos Harel writes in Haaretz.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threat to “intensify Israel’s response as needed” is front and center in the jingoistic Israel Hayom, which along with pundits and politicians has been all but goading the army into taking action.
• “The temperature in the Gaza Strip went up again over the past day, possibly ahead of an escalation of violence or even a military operation in the Strip,” the paper’s lede of its top news reads.

2. War is serious business, but one can’t help but notice the silliness — at least on paper — of launching one over kites, condoms and balloons.

• “They are not toys, they are weapons that are intended to kill and inflict damage,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters on Wednesday.
• TOI’s Judah Ari Gross notes, “These dead simple and dirt cheap methods have presented a significant challenge to the mighty Israel Defense Forces.”
• Gross also attempts to find out why Gazans have all these extra condoms lying around that can be used as weapons, with a spokesman for WHO poking a hole in my personal theory that that group is behind the latex luftwaffe.
• Yedioth Ahronoth’s Yossi Yehoshua predicts that if nothing changes, “Israel and Hamas are now on the path to the First Kite War,” a term that probably won’t catch on, but is better than condom war.

3. There’s also the fact that while Israel and Gaza are heading toward war, the US and others in the international community are actively trying to work toward solving the humanitarian situation there.

• US envoys Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner are meeting with Arab leaders in the region and reportedly schnorring for $500 million to pay for a redevelopment program in the Strip. In an early morning tweet, though, Greenblatt appeared to hint that donors are unwilling to cough up the dough as long as Hamas is in power.

https://twitter.com/jdgreenblatt45/status/1009590615615705089

• Leaving the humanitarian situation unsolved is seen as a key factor that could end up letting the sides continue on the slide toward war (and once a war starts, solving the problem will only become harder).
• But Israel Hayom’s Yoav Limor predicts that with things so problematic in the Strip, Hamas is eager as ever to be seen as the big man standing up to Israel to get cred, and hoping things don’t get out of hand.
• “Hamas is banking on Israel not wanting a war so it can continue concentrating on the northern arena, but it is mistaken in assessing that Israel will be prepared to live with the continuing terror kites on the border. And certainly in its assessment that it will deter Israel from acting by setting its own new lines,” he writes.

4. Israel is also taking a wide interest in the migrant fight happening in the US, with Yedioth Ahronoth going so far as to devote much of its front page to US President Donald Trump “folding” on the issue of separating children.

• The paper’s coverage includes columnist Einav Schiff attempting to explain Corey Lewandowski’s “womp, womp” comment about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome to a Hebrew-speaking audience.
• “It means oy-oy-oy, or maybe big deal,” she writes, using another English phrase, though this one is widely used in Hebrew, even in its sarcastic form.
• Walla News’s Oren Nahari also tries to explain to Israelis what is going on, writing that lest one think Trump grew a soft spot for migrant kids, in actuality he has a soft spot for making sure his party stays in power.
• “This image, of an administration too stringent, of kids separated from their parents, could cost them dearly” in the midterm elections, he writes.

5. Israelis have little trouble understanding the US decision to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council, which is consistently aligned against the Jewish state. But some diplomats and others are still wondering if doing so was really the best move.

• Foreign Ministry officials tell Israel’s Channel 10 that America’s absence would make it much more difficult to block anti-Israel initiatives at the Council.
• “Because this body is not going away — and we know that from the US withdrawal from 2006 to 2009 — what we need is for the US to appoint someone like Nikki Haley to take the floor and speak truth to power,” UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer tells ToI.
• ToI’s Raphael Ahren reports that while Israel cannot pull out of the council — since it’s not a member — it still may do something to mirror the US, like freezing ties with the body.
• “How can we stay when the US slammed the door on our account,” a former senior diplomat tells him, arguing that “once the US has left the council because of us, we have no choice but to cut ties.”

6.With the money saved from sending an envoy to all those meetings on human rights, perhaps the US can afford to put a little more money into its embassy’s building in Jerusalem.

• Axios reports that while delivering off the cuff remarks Tuesday night at a dinner, Trump said he almost signed off on spending $1 billion for the new embassy, though when he tried to get it for cheaper, his ambassador lowballed him.
• “I’m about to sign it — Donald J. — then said: ‘This is way too expensive; not a Trump deal.’ I call David Friedman [his ambassador to Israel]. He says, … ‘I can do it for $180,000.’ I said, ‘David’ — I’ve never said this — ‘you’re making me look cheap. Get the good marble! Spend $400,000.'”

7. Israel on the other hand, won’t be making any major changes at its embassy, with Netanyahu asking ministers to sign off on extending Ambassador Ron Dermer’s term by a year.

• Channel 10 news reports that Netanyahu told ministers he wanted to keep Dermer “for unique diplomatic reasons in the international arena and especially in regards to ties with the US.”

8. If approved, it means Dermer will be in town when the neo-Nazis come marching in. Reuters reports that organizers of last year’s march in Charlottesville are planning a new one, this time a few miles up Route 29 in Washington, DC.

• “Jason Kessler filed an application last month and it has been approved to hold what he described as a ‘white civil rights rally’ on August 11-12, although a permit has not yet been issued, Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said in an email,” the news agency reports.
• According to a copy of the application, Kessler estimates 400 very fine people will show up.