Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant is in Washington this week to beg for weapons.

If I were concerned about decorum I might phrase that differently, but I’m not. Concerned. About anything, really, but especially not about any sort of decorum.

That’s not entirely true. I’m concerned about the systematic slaughter of Gazan civilians and about the read-through of that slaughter for Israel’s long-term security. Or as concerned as an over-privileged American living in a 2,400 square foot downtown loft half a world away can be, which is to say not very concerned. (Try as I might…)

There’s little doubt that Israel’s safer from Hamas in the here and now than it was 10 months ago. It’s hard to fire rockets and launch cross-border murder-rape campaigns when poking your head out of the hole you’re hiding in means losing it. Your head, I mean. Beyond the here and now it’s a different story. In all likelihood, Benjamin Netanyahu and the collection of fanatics to whom he’s beholden have condemned future generations of Israelis to living in constant fear of some sort of attacks including, I’m sure, suicide bombings in the name of avenging “The Second Nakba,” or whatever Hamas decides to call the tragedy currently unfolding in Gaza.

Note that Hamas will still be around. The Israeli military’s belatedly admitting as much. “To say we are going to destroy Hamas, to make it disappear — it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” Daniel Hagari said last week. “Hamas is an idea. Whoever thinks we can make it disappear is mistaken.”

The IDF later emphasized that Hagari was referring specifically to the ideology, but Netanyahu generally avoids the distinction for fear of watering down the message which, as he reiterated while chatting with the families of dead hostages last week, remains the same: “We don’t have the option to give up on victory.” He still defines victory as the complete destruction of Hamas, even if he did allude to a distinction between the tangible manifestation of the group and the idea of it.

To the extent the military’s starting to break with Netanyahu regarding war aims, it’s just the latest fissure at the highest levels of the Israeli government. Earlier this month, Benny Gantz made good on a threat to resign from the war cabinet, which was subsequently dissolved.

Gallant’s trip to Washington comes as Netanyahu accuses the US of holding back weapons shipments beyond the widely-publicized halt to deliveries of certain kinds of munitions, including and especially 2,000-pound bombs. Last week, Netanyahu went public with the accusations, to the deep chagrin of the White House which said “We genuinely don’t know what he’s talking about.”

I hope that’s not true. I hope the White House knows exactly what Netanyahu’s talking about, and I hope the US is, in fact, delaying arms shipments. Israel doesn’t need any more weapons to decimate Hamas and any attempt by Hezbollah to engage the IDF in a full-on war on the border with Lebanon would almost surely be met with a US air response. There’s no indication — none at all — that Washington’s backed off that unstated commitment since it was tacitly adopted in the early days of the war, when many feared Hezbollah intended to force the IDF to fight on two fronts.

Netanyahu insists he needs “the tools to finish the job” in Gaza. It’s not obvious what that “job” is at this juncture. There are nearly 40,000 dead on the Palestinian side. He’s killed 2% of the enclave’s population. More US-made “tools” won’t get the hostages back. Spec ops might, but as we saw on June 8, sending commandos deep into Gaza on hostage rescue missions is very likely to result in lost warriors even when the missions go entirely according to plan, as the Noa Argamani operation apparently did. There are dozens of hostages left. It’s not realistic to send the Yamam in to retrieve them all, particularly given the distinct possibility that many are being held in what amount to catacombs with Yahya Sinwar.

On Sunday, Netanyahu doubled down on his accusations. “We turned to our American friends and requested that the shipments be expedited. We did this at the highest levels,” he said. “We received all sorts of explanations, but one thing we did not receive [were the weapons].”

Gallant’s job this week is to get those weapons. Officially, he’ll “raise unique areas of cooperation, with an emphasis on force build-up and power projection.” But his discussions with Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken will surely be aimed at determining if and when Israel can expect to receive more guns, bombs and bullets.

As a quick aside, Israel says the arms in question aren’t included in any supplemental defense packages, but rather are part of the country’s regularly scheduled (if you will) purchases from America.

Apparently, Gallant also plans to discuss a post-war security regime for Gaza, a point of contention between the White House and Netanyahu and indeed between Netanyahu and Gantz at home.

Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich was caught on tape telling settlers in the West Bank that in fact, Israel’s already annexed the territory and is just using the military as a front. In other words, it’s not a temporary military occupation (where “temporary” in this case means 57 years and counting), it’s a permanent civilian annexation.

Of course, that’s not exactly news. Certainly not to Palestinians. As The New York Times dryly put it, “for many Palestinians” the speech was notable only because Smotrich “said the words aloud.”