Let me add a few thoughts on the issues we were discussing yesterday about Israel and Israel’s government. For several years, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has loomed over Israeli politics as a potential successor to Benjamin Netanyahu. This is an established dynamic in Israeli politics wherein the IDF is far and away the most respected institution. Former chiefs of staff almost always get discussed as potential prime ministers, though only two of them have actually done it, and many of them become government ministers. Gantz has run as the leader of a party he created which has existed under a few labels. He’s won more seats, then fewer seats. Through the war he’s been the public’s top choice in polls for the next prime minister.

What I say now is based on no inside information or even reporting and it may seem audacious to say about someone who’s had such a career of accomplishment. But it seems clear to me that the man is a follower and has some fundamental lack of moral courage.

TPM Reader JS responds to TPM Reader JB’s note from last night. As I said with JB, I don’t agree with all of the points. But the overall argument hits at what I do believe JB leaves out, which is that the U.S. is still the great power in the region. And the situation in Gaza is umbilically tied to three or four other major regional tension points. To my mind the real issue is that we cannot bring this episode to a close because of Netanyahu’s intransigence which is one part ideology and one part the need to keep his coalition intact which, in turn, keeps him out of jail. That’s a tough reason for a great power to be consumed by an issue.

JB is a classic dot disconnecter. His assertion that Israel is taking too much bandwidth from Ukraine, for example, completely misses the point. I’m going to pretend the assertion that Bibi was trying to suck us into a war with Iran was hyperbole, because it’s ridiculous, bordering on the conspiratorial (Bibi approved the killing of the Iranian general knowing they would shoot 300 drones at Israel and this bank shot would bring the US in against Iran? Lol, lmao even.)

I debated for a bit how to explain why I was publishing this note from TPM Reader JB. I happily publish notes I agree with and others I don’t. In this case though, I disagree with quite a few individual assertions but found myself overall saying yes. That’s pretty much it. That’s a not-terribly-clear reaction. But I found it worth sharing with you.

There is a story told about Franklin Roosevelt, who spent most of the Wilson administration as an active Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  Decades later as President, he was hours into a meeting on military spending with his Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall, before Pearl Harbor, when the services’ needs were great and money was scarce.  Wearily, Gen. Marshall acknowledged the history, but asked Roosevelt, “Mr. President, could you at least stop referring to the Navy as ‘we’ and the Army as ‘they’?”

In yesterday’s podcast Kate and I discussed that NYT-Siena poll (way overplayed and exaggerated but still not great for Biden) and the debate story which was literally continuing to break and change while we recorded the pod. The two stories intersect in some interesting ways.

The Times said: “The early-debate gambit from Mr. Biden amounted to a public acknowledgment that he is trailing in his re-election bid, and a bet that an accelerated debate timeline will force voters to tune back into politics and confront the possibility of Mr. Trump returning to power.”

A public acknowledgement!

In recent days I’ve been in a running conversation with several Times staffers about Times coverage, some private, some on social media, trying to both keep it real and keep it calm. When I saw this line it struck me as part of that subtext of so much Times coverage, at least going back months and in many ways much longer, of “Joe, stop playing games and admit you’re behind. Admit you’re behind, Joe!”

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh analyze the presidential polling landscape plus some breaking news about the debates.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.