Rafah Tunnels, Riyadh’s Trillion-Dollar Embrace, and Israel’s Shrinking Leverage

In this week’s Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman opens with the tense standoff under Rafah, where a dwindling group of October 7th terrorists remain trapped in the tunnels as Israel methodically seals their exits and prepares for a final confrontation. From there, he shifts to Washington, tracing how the Saudi crown prince walked out of the White House with everything he wanted—F-35s, civilian nuclear understandings, and a headline “trillion-dollar” investment pledge—without offering normalization with Israel, and what that signals about Israel’s eroding political weight in both U.S. parties and in key American cities.Back home, Schulman examines how Likud primaries and coalition politics are driving increasingly extreme legislation, including a mandatory death-penalty bill for terrorists, and how a government-designed commission of inquiry into October 7th appears aimed more at deflecting blame than uncovering truth. He then turns to the United States, where the Epstein tapes, shifting Republican coalitions, and a resurgence of antisemitism on both the far right and far left raise uncomfortable historical echoes. The episode concludes with a look at the breakneck advance of AI—from Google’s latest Gemini release to AI-generated video and the risk of an “AI bubble”—and how these tools are simultaneously empowering creators and destabilizing our sense of what is real. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcschulman.substack.com/subscribe