Sixteen Tons of Concrete: What a Quiet August Actually Means

August is quiet, and Yossi doesn't trust it. He and Daniella map the fronts: Syria's new president signaling accommodation over the Golan Heights, settler violence turning the West Bank into the region's real flashpoint, encouraged by a government that needs those votes before elections, and why Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis each have reason to break the calm while Trump keeps Netanyahu on a leash until the American midterms. Underneath it all, the strange history binding Israel to the Houthis' ancestors, and a new shelter in the garden that Yossi expects will not stay a white elephant.