Netanyahu is replacing officials in key state positions with his own loyalists in a bid to consolidate power — and he is using the escalating war on Gaza to do it.

The bond between the U.S. and Israel is in the “souls” and “DNA” of Americans because we are both democracies facing terrorists, US Ambassador Tom Nides says. And so he does not mention the 17 children Israel killed in Gaza last month, even as he praises Israel for keeping the besieged Strip “relatively calm.” Nor does he mention Israel’s killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May in the occupied West Bank.