Tel Aviv Diary

∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞ Our Next ZOOM BRIEFING will take place on Sunday, August 2nd 6PM Israel Time • 4PM GB • 11AM EST • 8AM PST Invitations will go out on Sunday morning ∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞ We appear to be edging once again toward a confrontation with Iran.

A day after President Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, much about what transpired remains unknown beyond the peripheral details I discussed yesterday. The broad impression, however, is that the meeting was cordial rather than contentious. Netanyahu appears to have kept his requests to a minimum, recognizing the mood in the White House. Above all, he sought a public reaffirmation that the United States would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Trump, Trump gave an interview to Fox News in which he stated that he did not need situation briefings from Netanyahu. The United States, Trump said, already knows everything that is happening through its own intelligence capabilities. Netanyahu, he suggested, simply wants be included in the discussions.

In this episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman is joined by strategist, former National Security Council official, and Eisenkot campaign leader Lianne Pollack-David for an in-depth discussion about one of the most consequential moments in Israel’s modern history.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed for the United States today. Rather than leaving from Ben Gurion Airport, however, he took off from the Israeli Air Force base where the government’s official aircraft, Wing of Zion (Kanaf Tziyon), which has effectively become Netanyahu’s personal plane, is stored when not in use. I refer to it as Netanyahu’s plane, even though it was intended to serve both the Prime Minister and the President.

∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞ Our Next ZOOM BRIEFING will take place on Sunday, August 2nd 6PM Israel Time • 4PM GB • 11AM EST • 8AM PST Invitations will go out on Sunday morning ∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞–––––∞ Saturday morning, Israelis all woke up to the same surprise: we had slept through the night undisturbed. On Friday, the drums of war had seemed to be beating ever louder.

For nearly forty minutes, I sat down with former Knesset Member, journalist, and Middle East expert Ksenia Svetlova for one of the most candid discussions we’ve had on Tel Aviv Diary. Drawing on decades of reporting across the Arab world and years in Israeli politics, Ksenia offers a sobering assessment of where Israel stands after the wars in Gaza and Iran—and why she believes the country faces one of the most significant strategic challenges in its history.

Any account of where matters stand in the ongoing war between the United States and Iran, and the possibility that Israel could be drawn into it, might begin with the fact that the Israel Defense Forces are on their highest level of alert. The problem is that the same sentence could have been written every day for the past ten days, and probably for some time before that.

The major news in Israel today was that the United States signed an agreement allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its own soil. The Saudi agreement has been under discussion since the Biden administration. Under the original proposal, Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in return for U.S. approval of a civilian uranium enrichment program. Allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium is, of course, a step in the wrong direction.

One of the day’s more unusual stories was an AI-generated video released by the Likud. The episode also drew renewed attention to Jonathan Urich, a senior aide who remains on Netanyahu’s staff despite being under criminal investigation. Urich is accused of having worked on behalf of Qatar while serving in Netanyahu’s circle, along with other alleged offenses.