A lot to catch up on with no post during Holy Week. But things are continuing to deteriorate in Israel.
Ron Dermer flips out
The White House was unimpressed by Israel’s plan for a Fyre Festival in Gaza, and Ron Dermer, used to being able to yell at the help, can’t do so anymore:
Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, began yelling and waving his arms around as he defended the plan, the officials said. American officials in the meeting, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, kept calm and did not respond in kind, the officials said.
Israel presented a plan to move 1.4 million civilians over several weeks from Rafah to tents that would be set up north of the city, the officials said. But the Israeli proposal did not include plans for addressing sanitation needs or an assessment of how much food or water would be required or where it would come from, the officials said. They said the Israeli officials had only thought through sourcing for a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of tents that would be needed.
It also appears Brett McGurk’s Saudi-Israeli deal is indefinitely on hold. This is what the collapse of a strategic concept looks like.
The +972 scoop on Lavender
This story is making the rounds, about the automated killing machine Israel has been using to target people assumed to be Hamas members in Gaza.
Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes.
During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.
A few points about this. The software used to blacklist many people and target them for Israel’s defamation operations around the world are not fundamentally dissimilar to this, though the consequences of course are less deadly. I have this sense because I strongly suspect I have been targeted by some of them.
These spyware things are also used against people in Israel itself. There are strong suspicions the spyware was used to target Yair Lapid’s people, and there are reports of Mossad operatives washing up around the world in a state of bewilderment. These AI and spyware combinations are completely inhuman technologies, a weapon Israel picked up and which has now bit them by driving all their best people out of government.
Truth Social insider trading
The Shvartsmans both pled guilty yesterday to insider trading on Truth Social. From the DOJ website:
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that MICHAEL SHVARTSMAN and GERALD SHVARTSMAN each pled guilty to one count of securities fraud, both in connection with their participation in an insider trading scheme surrounding the merger of Digital World Acquisition Corporation (“DWAC”) with Trump Media & Technology Group (“Trump Media”). MICHAEL and GERALD SHVARTSMAN were arrested in June 2023 and pled guilty today before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman.
Onavo used to steal Snapchat data for Facebook
Onavo is another Israeli company integrated into the Facebook ecosystem. People have been passing around this detail this week:
Cardinal Gregory calls President Biden a “cafeteria Catholic”
Cardinal Gregory, Archbishop of Washington, called Biden a “cafeteria Catholic” on Meet the Press this weekend. This is pretty interesting for a bunch of reasons. Usually that phrase is used by conservative Catholics to describe liberal ones, and Gregory is sort of known to be on the liberal side of the episcopal conference. He is of course a cardinal of the Roman Church first, but he’s also a black guy from Atlanta. A criticism like that typifies both the city of Washington’s frustrations with the president in this moment, and also the frustrations of black voters. This is what bishops are for.
Colombia bought Israeli spyware for $13 million in cash
This story in Haaretz is hugely important, and speaks to Israel’s imbrecations with the drug trade. I am not at all kidding when I call their government a crime syndicate.
Howard Kohr to retire
The head of AIPAC to bow out by the end of the year. He’s probably just there for the time being so his successor doesn’t have to take the heat for everything that happens over the next few months.
Howard Kohr, the CEO who has led the powerhouse American Israel Public Affairs Committee since 1996, is set to retire by the end of this year.
Under Kohr’s leadership, AIPAC has traversed five United States presidencies and more than 10 Israeli elections. In that time, its budget and staff have enjoyed significant growth as it has become one of the best-known and most powerful lobbies in Washington. During his tenure, the United States’ military aid to Israel increased to $3.8 billion per year, and AIPAC has been a leader in adding sanctions on Iran. In the last election cycle, 98% of the candidates its eponymous PAC endorsed won their races.
New elections in Israel?
There was a riot in the Knesset this week, Benny Gantz, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet called for new elections, which was rejected by Likud.
Also former Tory foreign minister Alan Duncan called for reconsidering whether Israel is a British ally. It’s not too surprising, given that an official at the Israeli embassy in London was caught trying to “take down” Duncan.
This sort of crap is well beyond the bounds of normal diplomatic activity, but given Israel’s use of its diplomatic machinery to protect extortionists and launder drug money, it’s hardly surprising. They bombed a consulate in Syria this week, and if we adhere to the principle that turnabout is fair play, their isolation may have only just begun. This can get worse.
" there are reports of Mossad operatives washing up around the world in a state of bewilderment."
explain this one. quick run down?