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Breaking News:
Syria says air defenses thwarted another Israeli strike in south of country
State news agency claims it shot down missiles in the strategic Tal al-Hara area which overlooks the Golan Heights and that Israel caused electronic interference in Syrian military's radars. (Haaretz, Maariv and Ynet)

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Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

Top News Summary:
Despite Palestinian opposition, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco agreed to attend the Trump Administration’s economic peace conference in Bahrain, (Jordan’s King Abdullah reportedly said he didn’t want Jordan to ‘be left out of the room’), and in Nablus, Israeli soldiers misidentified Palestinian Authority security forces as wanted militants and opened up fire on them, wounding one of the Palestinians and harming the trust in the cooperation (see Commentary/Analysis for more).

Election Quickees:

Quick Hits:

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Features:
"When I stand on a train carrying my weapon, people see a Golani Brigades soldier. No one asks me if I am a Jew or an Arab"
A. is waiting for the day to finish his training and become a full-fledged Golani soldier. Then, he says, he will return to his childhood neighborhood and will march proudly to his parents' home with his uniform, weapon, pin and cap. Meanwhile, as the only Muslim combat soldier in his enlistment group, he lives in a lone soldiers' apartment and his parents tell their relatives and neighbors that he is studying abroad. (Eti Abramov, Yedioth Hebrew)
In Israel, Millionaires are the New Normal
With the estimated personal wealth in Israel going up by 45% in the last decade, Israelis are now a premier target for global wealth management bankers. (Sophie Shulman, Calcalist English)
Nechama Rivlin's secret friendship with jailed domestic violence victim
Despite her failing health the first lady, who died last week, continued her visits to inmates at Neve Tirza women's prison, supporting them through their rehabilitation efforts and providing them with hope. (Amir Alon, Yedioth/Ynet)
‘No one is immune to battle fatigue, not even the best fighters in the world’
Optimism, determination, meticulous preparations and a healthy dose of humor – Israel Hayom offers an exclusive glimpse into what makes the members of the IDF's elite special forces units tick. ( Ran Puni, Israel Hayom)

Commentary/Analysis:
Iran is in distress and is trying to exert pressure on the superpowers (Yossi Melman, Maariv) Due to its economic dire straits, Tehran has been trying in recent months to use counter-pressure leverage - on the diplomatic level against European countries, and on the military level in the actions attributed to it. According to information from Israeli intelligence, that it was behind the laying of naval mines that hit the ships of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and now also on the practical-professional level of increasing the rate of uranium enrichment to a low level. Its moves are intended to cause the international community to help it and to ease American economic pressure. If that does not help, Iran will always be able to use its proxies like Hezbollah to carry out terrorist and revenge attacks against American, Saudi and Israeli targets, as it did in the past.
There Are No More Excuses Left. Just Annex the West Bank (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz) To assuage the Jewish anxiety about accepting Palestinians as Israeli citizens, there is no choice but to take some steps to make the annexation Arab-free. The various right-wing parties have already made clear that Palestinians annexed to Israel won’t get citizenship, the right to vote or be elected to office, and that some of the social benefits they should receive will be denied. The qualification period for citizenship will be conditional on rigid, onerous contingencies, and after taking that long road, few will likely to be awarded it. Israel will draw a convoluted, twisted border that will cut off some Palestinian villages intended for annexation and tear whole families from their land, encouraging many others to move to villages and cities in the West Bank in order to keep them out of the new map. And then Israel will officially become an apartheid state, which will become immune to sanctions by virtue of the authority and permission given it by the U.S.
How to win back the squandered gift of 1967 (Victor Rosenthal, Israel Hayom) The Arabs are in the habit of winning; it will be hard to get them used to losing. But there are no win-win solutions for the Middle East.
What Did U.S. Ambassador David Friedman Say That Was New? (Dore Gold, Haaretz+) What seems to offend the author of Haaretz’s critique of Friedman the most is his assertion about Israel’s rights. The article tells Haaretz readers that Israel has no legal rights to any of the territories it captured in 1967. The most important legal analysis of this question, in fact, was written in 1980 by Stephen Schwebel, who would become the Legal Adviser to the Department of State and subsequently president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Schwebel did not doubt Israel’s rights; looking purely at the legal side, he wrote, “… Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt.” In short, by suggesting Israel had legal rights to retain some West Bank land, Friedman was not very far away from a traditional American view that appeared in previous public statements.
Officials in Washington: "Ambassador Friedman's status is controversial" (Shlomo Shamir, Maariv) Senior officials in the US explained that "Friedman chose to express himself on a sensitive subject at a bad time for the Americans." They added: "The deal of the century does not consider the Palestinians as a party entitled to a political solution.”
Trump's Ambassador Is Right on Israel's Annexation. His Posturing, pro-Palestinian Critics Are Wrong (Alan M. Dershowitz, Haaretz+) David Friedman is right: International law supports Israel retaining some of the West Bank. I should know – I helped draft it.
The Palestinians are choosing to fall behind (Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) The Palestinians, true to tradition, are choosing the path of rejection, but this time they are alone. They could lose more than their power to veto normalization of Israeli-Arab ties. At stake now is their ability to decide their own fate.
Netanyahu's little helper (Shimon Shiffer, Yedioth/Ynet) If the prime minister is as innocent as he claims, why is he so anxious to denigrate Israel's law enforcement and enlisted Trump to reprimand us for not giving his friend what he wants?
Security coordination: This is more or less what is in the relations between Israel and the Palestinians (Tal Lev-Ram, Maariv) Coordination of IDF activity in an area under Palestinian responsibility is always a sensitive point: On the Palestinian side, the security forces are accused of collaborating with the IDF. On the other hand, there is the constant Israeli dilemma of how to benefit from coordination with the Palestinians, but without endangering forces in the field as a result of the leak of operational intelligence. The bottom line is that the outcome of the serious incident in Nablus (where Israeli forces misidentified Palestinian security forces as militants and began shooting at them - OH) will allow for a relatively quick return to routine relations. Both sides can move on.
How Did Ronald McDonald Become the Scourge of West Bank Settlers? (David Rosenberg, Haaretz+) The burger chain is being accused of discriminating against them by not opening restaurants over the Green Line. It’s a worrying politicization of Israeli business.
Israel believes that Hezbollah is operating under the auspices of the Syrian military outposts in Daraa to collect intelligence (Tal-Lev Ram, Maariv) The attack in Syria last night attributed to Israel was directed against Hezbollah targets. One can not ignore the upsurge in the escalating messages between senior IDF officers and Nasrallah.
Russian-Turkish S-400 Deal May Indirectly Boost Israel’s Military Industry (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) If the U.S. makes good on its threat to terminate Turkey’s participation in the F-35 project, it could have unintended – albeit positive – consequences for Israel.
There are challenges, but still no money: IDF Chief of Staff’s plan is delayed and has hit difficulties (Tal Lev-Ram, Maariv) The multi-year plan led by the chief of staff Aviv Kochavi is expected to be delayed until the government is formed, and even then it is not certain that the deficit in the state coffers will allow it to receive the additional budget it requires.

Election Commentary/Analysis:
Right Wing Starts to Sour on Netanyahu, but Can’t Replace Him (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) For first time in over a decade, prominent religious-nationalist pundits are openly questioning the prime minister's motives and effectiveness.
He remains in darkness and keeping silent: Where in the world is Benny Gantz? (Gil Hoffman, JPost/Maariv) The only thing that seems to still be missing is… a candidate to run against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Labor Party Must Learn From Gabbay's Mistakes (Haaretz Editorial) Indeed, Gabbay made serious mistakes when he first took the reins. People who believed that he was the right man at the right time, and that he had the ability to attract new groups of voters to the party, later felt that for this goal, Gabbay was willing to alienate Zionist Union’s base and ignore its values. His willingness to accept Benjamin Netanyahu’s stereotype of the left as having “forgotten what it means to be Jewish” caused many to reject his leadership. Many voters were also infuriated when he dissolved Zionist Union and ousted Livni on live television. They felt that in his efforts to get rid of the leftist label, he had forgotten the left’s values.
Israeli democracy may be a big headache, but we have no other (Nir Kipnis, Maariv) Just like a bad time in a relationship that causes us to focus all our negative energies on our partner, so we saw all the ailments and defects in our democracy last week.
Labor now picking up the pieces (Mati Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom) With Avi Gabbay gone, Labor party leaders must decide whether they plan to act as a satellite party in the leftist bloc orbiting the Blue and White party's sun or lead the country again someday.
Israel's Left-wing Parties Must Join Forces (Noam Tibon, Haaretz+) There is a danger that small parties in both blocs won’t pass the 3.25 percent minimum vote threshold. I and many in the left-wing camp are concerned that the two left-wing Zionist parties have not learned this lesson. The Labor Party sank to a low of just six seats, while Meretz lost a fifth of its strength and barely crossed the threshold. But instead of announcing at this point that the two parties will run together in the upcoming election, some politicians in the parties are occupied with foolish battles over ego that don’t interest their electorates.
Friendly fire may set the right wing on the path to defeat (Shlomo Pyuterkovsky, Yedioth/Ynet) An overcrowded and fragmented political field threatens to weaken the right-wing bloc ahead of the September elections, while the Blue and White party is busy courting anti-Netanyahu votes from his ruling Likud party.
 

Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.