What Will Israel Do?
Plus: LLM limitations, Adams sues campaign finance board, when public schools indoctrinate kids, and more...
Ready to negotiate: "Hamas on Monday informed mediators that it accepted the ceasefire-hostage release deal proposal that was submitted to the group a day earlier, which sources said involves a 60-day pause and the release of 10 living captives, as mediators scramble to find an agreement before Israel launches its planned mission to conquer Gaza City," reports The Times of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was described as having "dismissed" Hamas' response and proceeding as planned with the takeover of Gaza City and resettling of Palestinians to the southern part of the Strip. "We can see clearly that Hamas is under immense pressure," said Netanyahu.
The deal would involve Hamas releasing 10 living Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian prisoners over the course of a 60-day truce, after which an extension is on the table. Netanyahu, however, has signaled that he is only interested in a deal that involves the release of all 20 living hostages.
But one thing Netanyahu will be forced to contend with is the dwindling public support for Israel's campaign in Gaza, both at home and abroad, as he enters the next phase of war.
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"By any objective analysis, the state of Israel is safer and more secure now than it was prior to Hamas' brutal attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Israel's ongoing campaign in Gaza has left Hamas a shell of its former self. Beyond the occupied territories, however, Israel has also weakened a bevy of neighboring states and militias," writes Daniel Drezner in Politico. (Drezner's Reason archive can be found here.) "Its precision attacks on Hezbollah crippled that Iranian-backed militia. Syria's civil war ended with the fall of Bashar Assad and the enlargement of Israel's buffer zone in that country. Its most recent attack on Iran decapitated the Revolutionary Guard's leadership—and dragged the United States into a Middle East conflict on Israel's side. Strategically and militarily, Israel is more powerful in the Middle East now than at any time in this century."
"The price Israel has paid for these military successes, however, is considerable," concludes Drezner, emphasizing the massive erosion in public support for not just Israel, but the continuation of U.S. support for Israel:
For most of this century, Israel and its allies have fought desperately to avoid any comparison with apartheid-era South Africa, recognizing that such an association would harm Israel's standing in the world. For all its sins, however, the Afrikaaner government was never accused of fomenting a genocide. Israel's government now risks being lumped together with Rwanda's Hutu regime, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Mao's China and, yes, Nazi Germany.
The question to ask is whether, in a world of dissolving norms, the genocide label matters anymore. But however you answer it, the very fact that the discussion is taking place is a sign of a significant shift in political tectonics that should be worrisome both for Israelis and American supporters of Israel.
It's not exactly just that—Americans paying enough attention to international affairs that support for Israel sours—but also a bit of a MAGA-era rethinking of what exactly aligns with American interests and what we care to fund. "Trump's redefinition of America's imperial role is emboldening US officials to distinguish American interests from Israeli ones—hearkening back to an older era of US–Israel relations—and freeing European governments to challenge the Jewish state without fearing American retribution," wrote Jewish Currents' Peter Beinart back in June. "The age of virtually unconditional Western government support for Israel is coming to an end."
But support can be pecuniary or it can be diplomatic, and there are plenty of signs that the U.S. is helping to trudge forward in getting Israel and Hamas to a deal that Netanyahu can accept. "No piecemeal deals, that doesn't work," said Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration's special envoy to the Middle East, earlier this month. "Now we think that we have to shift this negotiation to 'all or nothing'—everybody comes home," he said. "We have a plan around it."
Scenes from New York: "Mayor Eric Adams is suing the city Campaign Finance Board for 'arbitrarily, capriciously, and unconstitutionally' denying his re-election campaign nearly $5 million in matching taxpayer funds," reports the New York Post. Apparently "the board has 'shown a deplorable and anti-democratic bias' by continuing to bar Adams from cashing in on the city's generous 8-to-1 public matching funds program—even after the federal corruption case against the mayor was dropped this spring, the suit claims.…Despite the dismissal of his case, the board has continued to deny Adams the funds, citing its belief that Hizzoner's 2021 campaign 'violated the law.' In its latest refusal earlier this month—barring Adams from getting roughly $4.7 million in matching funds—the board also cited his campaign's failure to produce requested documents related to suspected illegal donations."
Libertarians observing all this might question why on Earth the city uses taxpayer dollars for campaign matching funds in the first place. I guess proponents of it probably say this allows scrappier upstart candidates to compete against moneyed opponents who are more deeply established in the world of NYC politics; I consider it a waste of the money the government stole from me.
QUICK HITS
- "LLMs are great for slowing age-driven executive turnover, because they're unusually good at things that get harder with age—remembering something on the tip of your tongue, or getting back context when stepping away from a task," writes Byrne Hobart at The Diff, responding to a piece on how hard it is to get executives to use A.I./large language models (LLMs). "But they'll also drive some executive turnover if too many people who could get the most out of them are stuck at a local optimum."
- "The right-wing cable channel Newsmax has agreed to pay $67 million to settle a libel lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems had brought against the channel for falsely claiming that the voting machine company had rigged votes in the 2020 U.S. presidential election," reports The New York Times.
- Roughly 4,000 U.S. troops are being deployed to the seas around Latin America in an effort to control and prevent cartel activity.
- "What if you were only allowed to make one purchase of printers, signs, or gear for podcasts per month? Would you consider that fully respectful of your free speech rights? Or would you view it as an attempt to muffle people's natural right to speak out—and perhaps a hint of more restrictions to come?" asks Reason's J.D. Tuccille. "California has something similar in the form of a law that limits people to buy one gun per month. If you rightfully believe that rationing the ability to express oneself violates First Amendment protections for speech, you'll be glad to know the courts have found California's law in violation of the Second Amendment's protections for self-defense rights and barred its enforcement."
- "While homeownership climbs with age, the fastest-growing group of renters is those 55 and older, according to 2023 Census Bureau data compiled by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. The share of renters 65 and older rose 30% in the last decade, according to a recent study by Point2Homes, a residence-rental platform," reports The Wall Street Journal.
- How do schools indoctrinate kids? New Just Asking Questions with Deb Fillman, author of The Reason We Learn.
- Wise:
"You live in a deranged age — more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." -Walker Percy @DouthatNYT https://t.co/hWH70hNznA
— Noelle Mering (@noellem) August 17, 2025
