Netanyahu's Free Hand Gets Slapped; Lebanon Sees His Leash Get Pulled

Israel’s Security Belt Just Bit Back; IDF Get Blitzed!

Right, so Israel’s latest Lebanon withdrawal apparently lasted about ten minutes. Ten minutes. You can boil pasta longer than that. You can sit through a Keir Starmer speech longer than that, although frankly nobody should have to, by minute seven consciousness will be touch and go. But for about ten minutes, Lebanon was told Israel had begun pulling back. President Joseph Aoun was reportedly informed that Israel had started withdrawing from part of the buffer area as a goodwill gesture and jumped the shark a bit in celebrating that news. Cue everyone pretending that Israel, after months of bombing, occupation, security belts and freedom-of-action demands, had suddenly discovered the concept of leaving somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. But then everything fell apart, because Israeli sources denied it. Lebanese sources then denied it. The story started wobbling almost as soon as it was reported. It was less a withdrawal and more of a diplomatic party trick. A vanishing act. Now you see it, now you don’t. A pullback with the structural integrity of wet cardboard. A goodwill gesture that apparently needed a witness protection programme before anyone could verify it had happened. Israel and Lebanon are supposedly in talks, but clearly anything but on the same page, or even having the same conversation. Washington is trying to manage a ceasefire that Israel abuses with impunity, talking up arrangements like “pilot zones,” “security arrangements,” “phased redeployment” and “freedom of action.” But strip away all of that inane jargon and what are we actually looking at? Israel saying withdrawal while staying. Israel saying security while holding Lebanese land. Israel saying ceasefire while seemingly having no grasp of the concept.

Israeli Minister Attacks School With A Saw; Then Got Faced With This

Right, so let’s start here. Start with a school because when Israeli forces are inside a girls’ school, and then a UN-mandated inquiry turns round and says Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted, it all takes a decided turn for the sinister. Israel would very much like this story filed in a dusty old drawer marked “UN bias”, because of course they would. UN says something about Gaza? Bias. UN says something about Palestinian children? Bias. UN says something about hospitals, maternity wards, detention, starvation, schools, aid blockades, children killed and children injured? Still bias, apparently. A magic word. Like diplomatic Febreze. Just spray “bias” over the room and hope nobody notices the smell of pi** still filtering through. But the problem this time is that the report is landing with footage. It lands on the ceasefire story Israel wants everyone to accept – their version of it of course - as if a ceasefire announcement is a moral washing machine and all the blood goes in one side and comes out clean on the other. That is the frame they want, but the frame here is different. This is a report about Palestinian children specifically, so the first thing you need to understand is that children are not just the casualties in this story. They are literally the case itself.

Burnham’s Reset Cracks Before It Starts; Israel Comes First Again

Right, so Andy Burnham’s great Labour reset has barely got its shoes under the table and it’s already imploding on him, but then how many Labour leaders – it looks like he’s going to get the gig unchallenged at this point, so we mighty as well get used to referring to him as such – are going to repeat the word change without meaning to actually deliver any? New face, new tone, new start, new path, final chance to change Britain, all the lovely campaign-board vocabulary they roll out only for a Starmer clone with an up north accent and less brylcreem to come out from behind the curtain. But this is the useful thing about a reset: you do not test it by the speech. You test it by the people brought into the room afterwards and of course a lot of the talk right now is the inane speculation as to who would be in his cabinet – does it really matter? They had to create a seat for Burnham to walk into because apparently there isn’t enough talent amongst the 411 Labour MPs to find another leader amongst, the consequences of Starmer’s candidacy stitch ups. And neither do we need another Burnham biography either. Nobody needs “King of the North: the origin story” with soft lighting and a tram stop. All we need to know about Burnham is that he is being relentlessly sold as the alternative to Starmer. The grown-up reboot. The man who can make Labour sound human again after years of managerial cruelty with flags stuck up it a*se. Fine. Then let’s test this reset...

Netanyahu's Free Hand Gets Slapped; Lebanon Sees His Leash Get Pulled

Right, so Netanyahu says Israel still has a free hand in Lebanon. Full freedom. No restrictions. No limits. The IDF can move as it likes, strike as it likes, stay as long as it likes, because apparently southern Lebanon is now just an patio extension north of the Israeli border with a few extra craters. Lovely. And that was the line he wanted to sell. Strong leader. Clear directive. Security zone. Residents of the north. All the usual soundbites dragged back onto the stage and arranged to make occupation look like just a little bit of housekeeping. But then one of his own rivals comes along and points to the bit Netanyahu didn’t not want discussed: the bit that shows his hands being tied as he declares full freedom. Because this is the thing about boasting. It only works while nobody checks your homework. Netanyahu says no restrictions. That gets contradicted by one particular rival and then southern Lebanon gives you the truth via the only translation that really matters: smoke, strikes, damage, fear, people living under the thing Netanyahu wants to call freedom. That is not the picture being sold to the Israeli public. But then one of Netanyahu’s own rivals comes along and says, hold on a minute. So let’s start with that.

Netanyahu's Lebanon Loophole Snaps; Iran Finds His Weak Spot

Right, so that is not a resistance spokesman. That is not an Iranian negotiator. That’s a big orange wombat – waste of money, breath and time. However, if you can claw through some the digression there, an actual salient point was being made, in that Trump has looked at Israel’s ongoing military aggression in Lebanon, all in defiance of his Iran deal of course and said in effect: you keep flattening buildings and yet you still cannot finish the job. And of course we know that, we know Netanyahu want’s Lebanon separate from the deal, or at the very least so that it doesn’t apply to him, but it’s not happening when Trump is literally telling him you didn’t have to knock down buildings in Beirut, which is itself a confession given he’s the one arming Israel, because even he is now openly admitting in effect that the targets are not military. Netanyahu wanted Lebanon as a loophole. But the problem with loopholes is that somebody eventually finds them. And Iran were never going to let this one remain open, when Israel leaving Lebanon is one of their red lines. Leaving will expose weakness, will expose Netanyahu to being tugged by the Washington leash. Will see Mr Security have to acquiesce to what Iran wants after 30 years of wanting to force regime change there and the resistance from within his utterly bats**t administration was always going to be obvious. As Iran gets its way, his own ministers go rogue: