Israeli Commander Taken Out In Lebanon; Netanyahu's Ministers Go Rogue

Israel's Lebanon Front Spirals Out Of Control; Hezbollah Had The Camera Rolling

Right, so Netanyahu’s Lebanon front has just done the one thing it absolutely was not supposed to do. It left some proof. Actual footage. Actual losses. Actual pressure. All being applied to Israel and not the other way around, The sort of thing that stops being a line in an IDF military update about being all moral and specific when they’ve just levelled an entire block – the sort of thing that ends up becoming evidence in somebody else’s argument. And that was the risk Netanyahu was trying to dodge. Keep Lebanon active, keep the troops in, keep the pressure on, keep the genocidally loopy ministers holding the reins of power over him howling for more, but still let the tangerine toddler passing himself off as President of the US sell an Iran deal as if the region had been neatly folded, ironed and put away in a drawer. The front was supposed to stay useful to Netanyahu without becoming inconvenient for him. Loud enough to serve Israel’s purposes, quiet enough not to wreck Trump’s sales pitch. As if he was ever going to pull such a stunt off. Hezbollah had the cameras rolling courtesy of their drone warfare, the casualty ledger has shifted alarmingly against Israel, Iran as a consequence has brought ships into the picture, and after it was apparently cancelled, JD Vance is on his way to Switzerland looking like the man sent to explain why the “stable deal” is now arriving with smoke damage and too much charring around the edges to have been just a little accident.

Netanyahu's Ceasefire Betrayal Backfires Big Time; His Iran 'Win' Falls Apart

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently won again. Amazing, isn’t it? Every few days, Israel wins so hard that another town in Lebanon starts smoking, another ceasefire needs hosing down, another American official has to pretend this is all part of the plan, and another poll appears showing that even Israelis are looking at Netanyahu’s victory parade and asking why the wheels have come off his float. This time though, the win Israel is claiming to have is over Iran. Israel won. Netanyahu stood tall. Trump got his deal. The region was being stabilised, allegedly. And then Lebanon walked into the room covered in dust, smoke and bits of somebody’s roof. The poll isn’t much of a win actually. Eleven percent. Just 11% of Israelis believe Netanyahu beat Iran, along with 71% of them believing Trump is going to sell them out to Iran. That is how they want to spin this, that is how it has been packaged. It takes airstrikes, rubble, shattered homes and a ceasefire Netanyahu and Co are desperate to wriggle out of - the latest example lasting for a grand total of – and I’m not joking – 5 minutes, and squeezes the whole thing into a narrative so soft you could use it to wrap crockery. This is the latest Israel victory claim getting dragged back to the scene of the crime and being found wanting, because it is spinning a win out of getting their arses handed to them and all for Netanyahu’s benefit.

Israeli Commander Taken Out In Lebanon; Netanyahu's Ministers Go Rogue

Right, so Benjamin Netanyahu thought he had found himself a loophole. A nice little Lebanon-shaped loophole. Trump’s deal, his Memorandum of Understanding with the Iranians could say what it liked. Trump could puff himself up at the podium like big orange balloon until he exploded. The diplomats could put on their grave and serious faces, shuffle some paperwork around like a BBC newsreader feigning interest in whatever drivel they’ve just spouted and pretend the region was being folded into Israel’s preferred order like some complex piece of genocidal origami. Netanyahu had other ideas, because of course he did. Lebanon was going to be the exception, the bit where he could carry on warmongering his weaselly black guts out. Nobody was going to stop him, or so he thought. And then the incident Kfar Tebnit this happened. Southern Lebanon. The front Netanyahu wanted to keep outside of the rules, outside of the deal, he needs war somewhere to keep himself in post. This was the security zone, the bit nobody else could have and it just blew up in his face and then some. Four Israeli soldiers killed. A battalion commander lost. Troops eliminated because a government decided this strip of Lebanon had to stay under Israel's boot.

Anti-Starmer Vote Wins Makerfield; But Did We Win Anything?

Right, so Andy Burnham has won a landslide in Makerfield, completely contrary to a typical Starmer Labour by election result because usually Starmer has all the appeal to voters of a wasp at a picnic on a summers day, so the fact Burnham has a majority now north of 9,000 votes still comes with a big caveat attached to it: Makerfield did not fall in love with Andy Burnham. Makerfield rejected Keir Starmer. Burnham won because he promised a leadership challenge, he really didn’t have much else to offer. This is definitely not a Labour resurgence bedtime story here. This is not Brave Andy riding back from Greater Manchester. Reform beaten. Hope restored. The grown-ups are back in charge. The band plays Things Can Only Get Better and everyone pretends the last few years were just a very expensive misunderstanding. No. This was not a love letter to Burnham. This was a warning shot through Starmer’s front window. Burnham won the seat. Reform were beaten. Starmer took the damage. But Labour’s great act of renewal, as this is being touted, is now a man who has spent years orbiting the same old party machine, walking back into Westminster and saying the word “change” with a bit more warmth than the bloke currently sucking all the oxygen out of Downing Street.

Iran Deal Traps Netanyahu; Now He Has Mutiny On His Hands

Right, so the Iran deal has landed as it is being broadcast, such as it is, a Memorandum of Understanding is just a diplomatic nod with nothing yet formally agreed to at all, but for all the pomp and ceremony going on ad nauseum, all gleefully and unquestioningly broadcast by the mainstream media, for once the story is not that Donald Trump has wandered up to a microphone, powdered himself in bronzer, declared himself the saviour of civilisation and is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Nobel committee on horseback. They’re sure to come this time aren’t they? Trump is in the story, obviously. That is the obvious bit. It is his deal. His signature. His announcement. His great big diplomatic peacock routine. So he is not the problem in this story. The problem is Benjamin Netanyahu. Because this deal does everything Netanyahu didn’t want and backs him into a corner he can’t get out of either. It takes Lebanon - the bit Israel wanted to treat like an open-ended military playground - and drags him out of it while at the same time he has the likes of Itamar ben Gvir screaming that Israel will not withdraw. Trump is desperate for this deal and it’s put him at loggerheads with Israel over it all while Netanyahu’s administration starts to eat itself over it. And the conflict here is clear to see. Lebanon is an Iranian red line, Trump has been forced to concede the point, such is his desperation and yet all of us can still point and say: hang on, if this war is winding down, why are Israeli troops still sitting in southern Lebanon?