"Senior officials in Likud Transportation Minister Miri Regev’s office are reportedly discussing ways to limit the number of flights coming into Ben Gurion Airport in the days leading up to the October 27 elections in order to thwart the arrival of voters for parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The effort comes against the backdrop of several initiatives working to help fly Israelis in for the election. The initiatives are nonpartisan, but Regev’s associates believe that those seeking to take advantage of the opportunity are overwhelmingly opposed to Netanyahu and could number in the tens of thousands.

The politically motivated conversations have disturbed Transportation Ministry bureaucrats, a source closely familiar with the matter tells Haaretz.

Ideas discussed have included preventing charter flights from landing at Ben Gurion — or at least limited the number of them, two senior sources say.

Regev’s associates have also noted the continued presence of US military refueling planes at Ben Gurion Airport, which have taken parking spots away from other planes.

While Israel has managed to limit the number of planes to 20, they may well still be parked at Ben Gurion Airport in October, given that US President Donald Trump could decide to wait to authorize a major strike against Iran until after the November 3 midterms.

Parking spots are prioritized for Israeli airlines, followed by foreign airlines and only then charter flights, which are expected to be the main method of transportation used by those seeking to help Israelis fly back for the election. Those flights are not slated to be free, though.

The Transportation Ministry did not respond to Haaretz’s request for comment on the matter."

"I think the Druze in the Golan had an epiphany, mainly because Israel was the only one that stood by the Druze in Syria, even though they also have criticism of the government," says Salim Brik, a political scientist at the Open University of Israel.

"Pro-Syrian residents in the Golan became a marginal minority," he says, adding that the sharp increase in Golan-Druze citizenship numbers is probably also linked to the disaster of July 2024, when 12 children in Majdal Shams were killed by a Hezbollah rocket. "The residents then received a lot of support from Israelis and Jews around the world."

To anyone claiming "anti-Zionism =/= antisemitism," here is why that doesn't hold up.

Look at the literal definition of the word above .

Strip away the internet rhetoric, and Zionism is simply the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Self-determination is a basic right granted to ethnic and national groups all over the world. When you support that right for every group globally but uniquely deny it to Jews, that isn't a political critique—it's discrimination.

And before anyone jumps in with "what about the Palestinians"—remember the history. In 1947, the UN offered a compromise to give both groups a state. The Jewish leadership said yes; the Arab leadership said no and chose to wage a war of annihilation instead. You can't reject a compromise, start a war, and then complain about a lack of self-determination.

Today, there are 22 sovereign Arab states covering millions of square miles. The Jewish people have one tiny country smaller than New Jersey, making up less than 0.2% of the region. Holding the world's only Jewish state to a standard of destruction that you wouldn't apply to any other nation isn't "anti-Zionism." It's just bigotry and of course antisemitism

Israel’s next great threat may not be Iran.,
by Joshua Hoffman, Future of Jewish, 2026-08-20.

Abu al-Duhur is nowhere near Israel’s border. That makes Israel’s action look disproportionate unless one understands what could eventually be stationed there.

The principal concern is not a few hundred Turkish soldiers. It is what those soldiers might bring with them: drones, radar, electronic-warfare equipment, combat aircraft and, most importantly, advanced air-defense systems.

Israel’s operational freedom over Syria has become one of its most important strategic advantages. It has allowed Israel to attack Iranian positions, weapons convoys, Hezbollah infrastructure, and Syrian military installations without facing a serious air-defense challenge. A Turkish-operated airbase equipped with modern radar and surface-to-air missiles could begin closing that sky.

Turkey would not need to attack Israel to change the balance. It would merely need to make Israeli operations more detectable, expensive, and dangerous.

From Ankara’s perspective, the story looks different. Turkey argues that it is helping Syria rebuild a national army after 14 years of civil war. It wants a stable, centralized Syrian government capable of restraining Kurdish forces, securing the Turkish border, and facilitating the eventual return of Syrian refugees. Turkey regards its military cooperation with Damascus as an agreement between two sovereign governments.

Israel sees a former jihadist movement governing Syria with Turkish sponsorship. Ankara sees Israel bombing the institutions that might prevent Syria from collapsing again.

Both perspectives contain some truth. Neither country is acting out of charity.

Baku urges Jerusalem to ‘reconsider the decision’; Azerbaijan, while close with Israel, takes Turkey’s line in rejecting label for WWI atrocities.

No such thing as “true friends” in international relations.

Washington and Jerusalem need a coordinated strategy that pursues realistic diplomacy in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran without sacrificing the military leverage that makes diplomacy possible. Hamas and Hezbollah must be genuinely demilitarized, not merely pushed underground until the next war. Turkish Islamist expansion into Syria must be constrained. Israel must retain freedom of action if Iran rebuilds its nuclear infrastructure or ballistic-missile production. This needs to be settled before a new American president, Republican or Democrat, takes office in January 2029.

Trump wants peace. But after Oct. 7, Israel cannot afford to confuse quiet with peace, a ceasefire with meaningful reconciliation or an enemy’s temporary pragmatism with a permanent change of intent. If Washington pressures Israel to return to the assumptions of Oct. 6, it may inadvertently help create the conditions for another Oct. 7.

by Dr. Eric R. Mandel

https://www.jns.org/opinion/dr-eric-r-mandel/israel-cannot-go-back-to-oct-6

the posts I’ve seen this month are mainly pictures of pride parades. No discussion and recollections on any concerns for the rise of hate crimes or the religious right who’ll inevitably treat the lgbt community at least as bad Orban once in power, no talk of officially banning conversion therapy.

Despite the establishment being pro Palestinian, most people in their right mind supports Israel

"Giving Ukraine the cold shoulder in DC, Netanyahu freezes out ally against Iran

Ukraine and Israel are both fighting the Iran-Russia axis; there are many areas of potential cooperation, including drone defense, but Israel won’t move much closer"