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http://honestreporting.com/idns-09102017-hamas-fuel/
Hamas Now Spending Own Money For Gaza Fuel
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago
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Today’s Top Stories
1. The Times of Israel reports that Hamas is now spending its own money for the first time to purchase diesel fuel for Gaza.

The purchase of some 30 million liters of diesel from Egypt, at a cost of NIS 90 million ($25 million), indicates a change in attitude on the part of Gaza’s rulers, likely indicating a bid to stave off a repeat of street protests that roiled the enclave last winter . . .

The cost of the fuel oil Hamas purchased from Egypt amounts to six times the amount the PA cut, and marked a move by the Gaza authorities to divert funds into improving the local infrastructure problems.

Until now, Hamas had refused to pay for the fuel, insisting it was the responsibility of the PA, while spending millions of dollars of military infrastructure.
2. The Trump administration is considering demanding Israel give back key US military aid. At stake: $75 million and what would become a yuge fight with Congress, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

3. Qatar — which supports Hamas and whose emir owns Al Jazeera — hired a New York City-based public relations firm to bolster US-Qatari ties and boost its image among American Jewry. So reports the O’Dwyer Report, a journal which covers the p.r. industry.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Congressional efforts to cut US financial aid to the PA over its terror stipends moved another step forward:

The Taylor Force Act was attached to the 2018 Foreign Operations budget in the Senate on Thursday, meaning the legislation is almost certainly assured of being enforced in the United States from next year.
• Freedom House released its report on international press freedom. Israel was the highest ranked country in the Mideast and 64th overall while the West Bank and Gaza Strip was ranked “not free” and tied with Vietnam. More background at Israel HaYom.

• I wonder why the Russians didn’t fire. I’m sure Assad, Hezbollah and Iran are wondering too.

• Israel is trying block Palestinian efforts to join the UN’s World Tourism Organization as a full member state. The Jerusalem Post explains:

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Tourism applied for membership for “Palestine” into the organization last year, and it is on the agenda at the meeting of the UNWTO General Assembly in Chengdu, China, which begins on Monday and runs through Saturday.

In order to be accepted as a state in the WTO, the Palestinians will need two-thirds of the votes cast — abstentions are not counted. They are expected to garner the necessary majority, especially since countries who could be counted on to support Israel and vote against the move – such as the US, Canada and Australia – are not members of the WTO. The United Kingdom is also not a member.
Theophilos III
Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III

• Palestinians are demanding the ouster of Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III over alleged sales of church land to anonymous Israelis.
It’s a complicated story: The mystery Israeli buyers were denounced by Israeli officials last week.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departs for Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and the US tonight. It’ll be the first visit to Latin America by a sitting Israeli prime minister. Ahead of the PM’s departure, Israel is also sending humanitarian aid to Mexico, which was hit by an earthquake.

Around the World
• Illinois gubernatorial candidate dumps running mate over BDS.

• A former principal in France says he warned Jews not to attend his school because they’d be harassed.

• U. of Wisconsin student leader apologizes for Passover vote on anti-Israel resolution. More at the JTA and the Badger-Herald.

• Left-wing activists at Tufts University in Massachusetts created an uproar by publishing a “disorientation guide” which called Israel a “white supremacist state.”

The Tufts version does not receive university funding, according to Tufts’ executive director of public relations, Patrick Collins, and is not part of the university’s official orientation program.
• US Army to test Iron Dome for use in Europe.

• Chelsea condemns anti-Semitic song about player by own fans.

• Jews fleeing Hurricane Irma are taking refuge in Atlanta’s synagogues. Last I looked, Irma strengthened itself into a Category 4 storm and hit the Florida Keys this morning. It left a wake of destruction across the Caribbean, killing 24 people. Tampa Bay is bracing for a wallop.

Commentary/Analysis
• Plenty of broken quills and burnt pixels on last week’s alleged Israeli airstrike on an alleged chemical weapons facility in the alleged state of Syria.

– Amos Yadlin: How to understand Israel’s strike on Syria
– Amos Harel: Why Syria hasn’t retaliated to the alleged Israeli strike
– Elliott Abrams: Israel’s bombing of a weapons factory in Syria: What comes next?
– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: Sending a signal to major players in Syria
– Alex Fishman: Syrian regime caught in catch-22 with ‘Israeli’ strike
– Avi Issacharoff: Why Russia may not respond to the alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria
– Benny Avni: Israel just showed what a ‘red line’ is really supposed to mean
– Herb Keinon: Critical that Russia not be surprised
– Tom Rogan: Israel’s airstrike message to Syria, Iran, and the US
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): The next Middle East war (click via Twitter)

• Weekend’s best tweet goes to Sohrab Ahmari.


• Here’s what else I’m reading/watching today . . .

– Bruce Bawer: PFLP terrorists in Germany’s parliament?
– Gil Troy: ‘The-games-will-go-onism’ inflamed Palestinian Nazism
– Dore Gold (video): The struggle for Jerusalem in international diplomacy
– Allan Ripp: A rabbi walks into a campus protest . . . (click via Twitter)
– Liel Leibovitz: UCI teaches students a lesson in protecting free speech, disciplines anti-Israel goons

• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Roger Waters, who got a New York Times soapbox, and Gray Lady columnist Roger Cohen.

Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Binuri Ranasinghe; US Capitol CC BY-NC-ND Stephen Melkisethian; Theophilos via YouTube/Orthodox Church;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-09052016-russia-hezbollah/
Russia Gives Hezbollah Diplomatic Cover in UN
Israel Daily News Stream21 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Haaretz: Russia threatened to veto US and Israeli moves against Hezbollah last week as the UN weighed extending and expanding UNIFIL’s mandate:

However, during the negotiations over the wording of the resolution, significant portions endorsed sought by the United States and Israel were removed, chiefly the direct reference to Hezbollah as conducting prohibited military activity in southern Lebanon that is in violation of Resolution 1701. It was Russia that ensured all mention of Hezbollah was omitted . . .

One Israeli official said the Russians’ conduct attests to the closeness between Russia and Hezbollah as a result of the coalition they formed with Iran to help Bashar Assad’s regime survive in Syria. The official also said that because of Russian interests in Syria and its joint military activity with Hezbollah against ISIS and Syrian rebels, the Russians gave Hezbollah diplomatic cover in the UN.
2. Knesset members outraged at UN funding legal aid for terrorists.

3. International Committee of the Red Cross head Peter Maurer visited Gaza, where he asked the Strip’s top Hamas chief, Yahya Sinwar to let him visit the Israelis being held in Gaza. Ynet coverage.

4. Video: Why Did Israel Build a Security Barrier? HR In a Minute: Some call it a fence, a wall or a barrier. It’s been the subject of heated argument and countless news stories. So why did Israel build it? HonestReporting explores the issue.


Israel and the Palestinians
• The Palestinian Authority arrested the chairman of a Hebron-based radio station. Ayman Qawasmeh had called on PA President Mahmoud Abbas and PA PM Rami Hamdallah to resign on the air.

In a fit of frustration, Qawasmeh on Thursday called on Abbas and Hamdallah to resign after the IDF raided his radio station in Hebron and confiscated equipment, accusing them of failing to protect PA -controlled areas in the West Bank. An IDF spokeswoman said security services raided the radio station because it was inciting violence, a charge that Qawasmeh has denied.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ crackdown on free speech in the West Bank has gotten so bad, even The Guardian picked up on it.

• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is running for seats in the German parliament (!?), lashed out at the Israeli media, as well as Israeli and German politicians who are seeking to ban the PFLP in Germany. More at the Jerusalem Post.

• Judge Esther Hayut was approved as Israel’s next Supreme Court chief justice. She replaces Chief Justice Miriam Naor who is due to step down later this year. In this photo, the two judges posed with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.

#JustWondering what @lsarsour has to say about #women in top #Israel justice positions https://t.co/Jg2ThprgwE pic.twitter.com/44IvEoB2qH
— Pesach Benson (@PesachBenson) September 5, 2017
• According to IDF assessments, Hezbollah is spread too thin in Syria and is too economically strapped to start a war with Israel right now.

Around the World
• Germany is marking the 45 anniversary of the Palestinian terror attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics with a permanent memorial to the 11 Israeli athletes and German police officer killed. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Ankie Spitzer, whose fencing coach husband was among the murdered Israelis, shared her memories of the attack and the fight the Israeli families put up to get the memorial.

Munich 72

• Ryerson U. students are looking for answers over a professor’s ‘anti-Semitic’ tweets.

• Canada’s largest private sector union adopted a pro-BDS motion “to support the use of BDS tactics to target ‘sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT (occupied Palestinian territories).'” Unifor represents 310,000 workers in a wide of array job sectors from media, manufacturing, education and more.

• Israel plans to send $1 million in aid to the Houston Jewish community. “The money would be transferred through Israel’s consulate in Houston and would go toward repairing and rebuilding local schools, synagogues and Jewish community centers damaged by tropical storm Harvey.”

Houston
A flooded Houston residential neighborhood.

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Rear Adm. Oded Gour-Lavie (Res.): Israel as a regional, maritime superpower, part II
– Tovah Lazaroff: Has North Korea emboldened Iran?
– Amb. Alan Baker: Hijacking the laws of occupation
– Moshe Arens: Lessons learned from Hezbollah
– Yoram Ettinger: Unmasking the UN
– Smadar Perry: When Nasrallah strikes a deal with Syria
– Hani Nasira: ISIS, ‘Hezbollah’ deal reveals hidden agendas

Featured image: CC0 Pixabay; Houston via YouTube/Highway Victim;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-09032017-iran-syria/
US to Accept Iran, Hezbollah in Syria Within 10 Km of Israel?
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. The US will reportedly allow Iranian-backed militias within 10 km of the Israeli Golan Heights.

The report appeared to back up Russian media claims that Moscow has ignored pleas from Israel to prevent Iran from exploiting Syria’s ongoing civil war to expand its military influence into Syrian territory . . .

The report said the US agreed that Iranian-backed militias could be positioned as close as 8-16 kilometers (five to ten miles) from the Jordanian border and the Golan Heights, less than half the originally sought 32 kilometers (20 miles) distance.
Meanwhile, Asharq al-Awsat reports that Russia is now in full control of Syrian airspace.

This includes advanced early warning and control aircrafts that could “paralyze” the capacity of Israel and the US Marines to launch airstrikes against Syrian territories with “cruise” missiles, which Washington used last April when it attacked the Shayrat Air Base in the Homs governorate.
Hezbollah2. Israel says a Lebanese officer on the Israeli border is a Hezbollah ‘plant,’ and is urging UNIFIL to have him removed. Ynet explains:

According to the Israeli claims made to UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), Hezbollah deliberately planted Major Yahya Husseini in the Lebanese army as part of a broader effort to boost its influence within the military.

Husseini, the Israelis said, acts as Hezbollah’s “liaison officer” and is in continuous contact with the organization’s militants. Moreover, UNIFIL was told that he receives instructions from the organization and consistently provides it with information.

It is the first time that a well-known source with the military’s ranks has been exposed as a Hezbollah agent.

3. The Washington Free Beacon reports that Congress may have found a way to restrict US aid from being used by the PA to support terror without passing the Taylor Force Act.

A small amendment in Congress’s yearly appropriations bill would stop the U.S. government from giving aid to the Palestinian Authority if it uses these funds to honor terrorists and pay salaries to those militants imprisoned in Israel for carrying out past attacks . . .

The appropriations amendment, while similar to the Taylor Force Act, provides a quick fix to the problem by banning all payments by the Palestinians to terrorists as a precondition for continued American aid.

US Capitol Building

Israel and the Palestinians
• Ynet takes an in-depth look at Rasmea Odeh, who is due to be deported from the US for lying to immigration officials about her conviction more than 30 years ago for her role in a Palestinian terror attack.

• A group of Israeli mayors and local council heads near Gaza warned the US and Jerusalem that the Strip’s electricity crisis will cause dire environmental damage if left unchecked. “More than 100 million liters of untreated sewage are being discharged into the sea every day,” threatening to spread disease to Israelis, Palestinians and Egyptians.

Gaza beach
Palestinian children playing on a Gaza beach.

• In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, US Ambassador David Friedman referred to an “alleged occupation” of the West Bank, prompting PA officials to ask the US for a clarification.

• The Palestine Museum has been open for more than a year and it finally has its first exhibition, which focuses on Jerusalem. The museum was widely panned for opening without any exhibits.

Around the World
• Pro-Palestinian U. of California-Irvine students are appealing sanctions over their protest last May against visiting Israeli speakers, the Los Angeles Times reports.

• Guam Jews identify with Israeli resilience amid North Korea’s hydrogen bomb and missile threats.

Cope North 2011
US and Japanese Air Force planes in a 2011 exercise at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

Commentary/Analysis
• British theater bias against Israel is becoming an issue again thanks to the debut of Oslo and the revival of My Name Is Rachel Corrie. David Herman takes note of what he calls “Thespian Agitprop.”

The other contrast is with television drama. In recent years there have been acclaimed drama series about the Middle East, above all, Homeland and Hugo Blick’s The Honourable Woman, where the emphasis has been on complexity and ambiguity, with unforgettable Israeli and Arab characters. Why have even-handed TV dramas on Israel been possible, when British theatre can only produce shrill agitprop? The answer, sadly, is that British theatres think it is better to be self-righteous than carefully to explore both sides of complex conflicts.
• Worth reading: Noa Amouyal on why Conan O’Brien is the worst nightmare of Roger Waters and the BDS movement:

The most interesting aspect of the his visit, though, is that he defiantly ignored his critics and treated Israel like it’s an attractive (and normal) tourist destination.

And that’s because it is.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Prof. Eyal Zisser: What if Israel hadn’t destroyed Assad’s reactor 10 years ago?
– Bassam Tawil: UN Chief Guterres, the media and Palestinian fake news
– Yaakov Lappin: The low-profile war between Israel and Hezbollah
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): PFLP in Germany
– Benjamin Gladstone: Young anti-Zionist Jews claim to speak for my generation. They don’t. It’s time we called them on it.
– Avi Issacharoff: Iranians at the gates
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: Who killed Naji al-Ali?
– S.L. Wisenberg: After Harvey, a requiem for Jewish Houston
– Sally Abrams: Israel is the friend who shows up

Featured image: CC BY-SA Michael Coghlan; US Capitol US government work; Gaza beach via YouTube/Welcome to Palestine; Guam US government work;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08312017-unifil-mandate/
UNIFIL Mandate Beefed Up — Now What?
Israel Daily News Stream5 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. The UN Security Council agreed to beef up the mandate of international peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon. According to the New York Times, the US threatened not to renew the mandate for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) unless it was significantly altered to address Hezbollah’s arms build up. More at the Times of Israel.

2. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group, will be allowed to run as a political party in German parliamentary elections (!?).

The PFLP carried out a number of airline hijackings in the 1970s as well as a number of shootings and suicide bombings during the Second Intifada — including the 2001 assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi. Its most recent terror of note was in 2014 when it claimed responsibility for an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in which two gunmen killed four rabbis and a responding police officer. A fifth worshipper died in a coma months later.

For observers of terrorism in Germany, it is unclear why the ministry is reluctant to outlaw the Palestinian organization, which is widely recognized as a terrorist group.
3. Saudi Arabia is sponsoring 500 families of Palestinian “martyrs” to make their pilgrimage to Mecca. The Media Line reports the Saudis have been doing this for nine years.
hajj
Muslim pilgrims in Mecca, 2010

Israel and the Palestinians
• A US federal court threw out a $1 billion Palestinian lawsuit against dozens of American supporters of Israel:

The lawsuit, filed by a group of Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans, including Bassem al-Tamimi from the village of Nabi Salah, claimed that organizations that supported Israel and donors to Israeli organizations were committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and even working to expel all non-Jewish residents of east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
• Israeli police arrested a Palestinian singer for glorifying terrorism. The Jerusalem Post explains:

The singer, Mohammed al-Barghouti, from the West Bank village of Beit Rima, ran a recording studio where he produced the song that glorified the murders of Chaya, Elad and Yosef Salamon. As part of the operation that lead to his arrest, the studio was raided and equipment used to run it was confiscated. In addition, the singer’s collaborators on the song, as well as the producer of the accompanying music video, were also arrested.
• Jordan is refusing to accept Israeli Ambassador Einat Shlain’s return to Amman over her appearance in a photograph with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ziv Moyal, the security guard who shot and killed two people Jordanians in what Israeli officials insist was self-defense. Ynet explains why the standoff leaves relations “in a state of freeze.”

Sources estimated that in light of Jordan’s outright refusal, Israel will have no choice but to appoint a new ambassador, if it intends to restore normal relations with Jordan.

In the meantime, the Israel Police’s investigation of Moyal’s actions has not yet ended, although all the signs show that Moyal’s claim of self defense holds up.

• Russia reportedly stationed S-400 batteries near an Iranian arms factory in Syria.

Around the World
• Houston Jewish community ‘could take years’ to recover from Harvey. And props to the Houston Jewish Herald-Voice for keeping the paper going (web and print) in such unimaginable circumstances. The JTA explains how publisher Vicki Samuels Levy and her family pulled it off.

Latest reports I saw put the death toll at 38. For a sense of Harvey’s destructiveness, see the Houston Chronicle and USA Today.

• Africa’s top university risks endangering its US partnerships over a proposed boycott of Israel.

The governing bodies of the University of Cape Town (UCT) — which is regularly ranked as Africa’s number one university as well as among the world’s top 200 universities — will be debating the adoption of an academic boycott resolution on September 15 . . .

Bernstein said that UCT would also find it impossible to defend itself from retaliatory moves that a boycott would likely produce. “Once you endorse an academic boycott yourself, you don’t have any standing when it comes to opposing people who then engage in a boycott of your institution,” he remarked.
• Chants about killing Jews shouted at BDS rally in the Netherlands.

• Polish tourism chief fired after saying he removed Auschwitz from journalists’ itineraries.

Auschwitz

• Police are searching for a man who allegedly threatened to shoot up a Miami area synagogue.

• Swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti painted on Connecticut public school.

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Benjamin Weinthal, Asaf Romirowsky: Follow the money: The Israel-boycott movement and its accomplices
– Jonathan Tobin: Obama’s Mideast legacy: Iran’s puppets all around Israel with war on the way
– Jeffrey Lewis: Trump’s next self-inflicted crisis is a nuclear Iran
– Diliman Abdulkader: My experience in Israel: It is not what you see on TV

Featured image: CC BY jseliger2; Mecca CC BY-SA Al Jazeera English; Auschwitz CC BY-NC-ND Clark & Kim Kays;

4911.4056 in reply to 4911.4055
http://honestreporting.com/idns-08272017-haley-unifil/
Nikki Haley Spars With UNIFIL Chief Over Hezbollah Arms
Israel Daily News Stream5 hours ag
Today’s Top Stories
1. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley got into a war of words with UNIFIL’s commander over the mandate of the peacekeepers working in Southern Lebanon. The US and Israel want the UN Interim Force in Lebanon to prevent the spread of Hezbollah’s illegal weapons.

Haley accused UNIFIL’s commander, Maj.-Gen. Michael Beary, of turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s rearming after he said there was no proof of illegal weapon transfers:

The Irish general told The Associated Press that his force has no evidence of weapons being illegally transferred and stockpiled in the area, and that “if there was a large cache of weapons, we would know about it.”

But Haley said there’s plenty of evidence including Hezbollah’s own boasts and Beary displayed “an embarrassing lack of understanding of what’s going on.”
“He seems to be the only person in south Lebanon who is blind to what Hezbollah is doing,” she said, adding that his view of the situation “shows that we need to have changes” in the mission.
Meanwhile, France said there’s no need to change UNIFIL’s mandate.

And former Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor weighed in on UNIFIL and other issues ahead of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ visit to Israel. As this roundup was published, Guterres was due to land. More on his visit at Ynet and the Times of Israel.

Haley-Beary
US Ambassador Nikki Haley and Irish Maj. Gen. Michael Beary, Head of Mission and Force Commander of (UNIFI


2. The Trump administration will continue full-funding for the UN relief agency responsible for Palestinian refugees despite Israeli calls for its dismantling, Foreign Policy reports.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has privately assured the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, that the United States, which provides more than $300 million to the agency each year, will maintain its current levels of funding to the organization . . .

The moves run contrary to the administration’s push to rein in spending on U.N. relief programs elsewhere. It reflects growing concern that the imposition of sharp cuts to Palestinian relief programs could thwart the White House campaign to restart Middle East peace talks, and inject further political instability in a region that stands permanently perched on the brink of political upheaval.
Canada announced it will provide $25 million.


3. Frankfurt became the first German city to ban the ‘anti-Semitic’ BDS movement. The Jerusalem Post explains:

Uwe Becker, the deputy mayor and city treasurer for Frankfurt, who initiated and is steering the legislation to passage, told The Jerusalem Post: “The BDS movement does not only strongly resemble the ‘Don’t Buy from Jews’ argumentation of former times of the National Socialists, but the movement is built on the same toxic ground and it is poisoning the social climate in the same dangerous way.
“BDS strongly attacks the fundamental basis of the legitimacy of the Jewish state and takes a detour via anti-Zionism to spread antisemitism,” Beck added. “That’s why we decided to ban any municipal funding or the renting of rooms for any activities of groups or individuals who support the antisemitic BDS movement. We also instructed our city-owned companies and called upon private landlords to act in the same way.”
Frankfurt
Frankfurt

4. Washington Post: Israel ‘Suppressing Its Majority Population?’ What’s behind David Rothkopf’s grossly inaccurate slur of a throwaway line?

5. Demolition Job: Balance and Relevant Facts Go Missing: As Israel demolishes illegally built Palestinian buildings, The Independent’s Bethan McKernan is narrowly fixated on an anti-Israel narrative at the cost of balanced reporting and the inclusion of relevant facts.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Top incremental news of the weekend:

At the end of their meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah, the best Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his special envoy, Jason D. Greenblatt, could manage was a two-line statement saying that the Palestinians had agreed not to bolt from the American-led process.
• It’s not clear to me how significant this is, but Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a group of Jewish community leaders that she’s open to the idea of an Aussie diplomatic presence in Jerusalem. The Australian picked up on the Australian Jewish News‘ scoop.

She said that the biggest stumbling blocks to Australia moving the embassy to Jerusalem are financial and security.

But, Bishop said, if she could overcome the cost and security issues to open some sort of diplomatic presence, she would consider it.
Israel Australia flags

Around the World
• Reuters: Iran dropped national team captain Masoud Shojaei from qualifiers after playing against an Israeli team. Last week, Iran denied Western reports that Shojaei and Ehsan Haji Safi were banned for playing for their Greek team, Panionios, against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

• Reykjavik once voted to boycott Israel. Now it’s getting food delivered by Israeli drones.

• If you’re not up to speed on the murder of Sarah Halimi, the Jewish community’s outrage over the way French police, prosecutors and judges have handled the case, and the political ramifications, you must see the Jewish Chronicle.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Ex-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

• A peer-reviewed journal published Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then they realized who he was and retracted. The former Iranian president — and notorious anti-Semite and homophobe — was published in the Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal’s August issue. Details at Tablet.

• Students in an Atlanta private school were suspended or expelled for playing ‘Jews vs. Nazis’ beer pong.

• A synagogue sharing premises with a New York City church was vandalized with a swastika and white supremacist symbols.

Commentary/Analysis
• Iran’s on my mind:

– Ben-Dror Yemini: Obama chose dishonor, and Israel will have war
– Giora Eiland: Iran, not so far away
– Dore Gold: Thwarting a new Iranian empire
– Jonathan Spyer: And the winner in Syria is . . . Ira

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi: On Kremlin friendship
– Yaakov Katz: Why Israel has nothing to learn from Europe in fighting terror
– Jonathan Tobin: Beware the illusion of momentum
– David Ignatius: Could this be a game-changer for Middle East peace?
– Bruce Bawer: Anti-Semitism in Europe: New official report
– Dr. Gideon Elazar: China projects its power in the Red Sea
– Maajid Nawaz: We Muslims are totally self-unaware cry-bullies in the school playground
Featured image: CC BY Sjoerd Lammers Photography; Haley CC BY-ND United States Mission Geneva; Beary CC BY Irish Defense Forces; Frankfurt CC BY-NC-ND barnyz; Ahmadinejad CC BY Wikimedia Commons/Agencia Brasil;


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http://honestreporting.com/idns-08242017-beauty-queen/
Lebanese Beauty Queen Loses Title Over Israel Visit
Israel Daily News Stream5 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. A Lebanese beauty queen was stripped of title amid revelations she once visited Israel as a student.

Swedish-Lebanese Amanda Hanna won Miss Lebanon Emigrant 2017 earlier this month but was told she was no longer allowed to hold the position after organisers discovered she had previously visited neighbouring Israel using her Swedish passport on an academic trip in 2016.
At the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, a selfie posted by Miss Israel Doron Matalon on Instagram sparked an uproar in Lebanon because Miss Lebanon Saly Greige appeared in the picture along with two other contestants.

Amanda Hanna

2. The PA spends far more on terrorists’ stipends than on real welfare benefits, according to a report by MEMRI picked up by Israel HaYom.

A review of the figures showed that the terrorist stipends are sometimes 20 times higher than the welfare benefits provided to needy families.

Most welfare benefits, paid out by the Palestinian Social Development Ministry, reach some NIS 600 ($170) per family, while the maximum monthly stipend paid to prisoners and terrorists’ families exceeds NIS 12,000 ($3,300).
MEMRI uncovered that the PA budget classifies the payments prisoners as a “monthly salary,” not social welfare. It also found that the prisoners’ salaries are based on the length of their incarceration and seriousness of the crime, not the prisoner’s economic needs or socioeconomic situation. But this particular finding floored me:

The PA also pays a monthly NIS 500 supplement to Israeli Arab prisoners. The Palestinian authorities are under no obligation to care for prisoners who are citizens of Israel. Thus, PA support for Israeli Arab prisoners is incentivizing Israel’s own citizens to carry out crimes that will land them in prison.
dollar

3. Huh: Amnesty International denounced Hamas and the PA for cracking down on free expression and the media.

4. Headline Fail: ‘The Jews Fighting For ISIS’: An inflammatory International Business Times headline falsely states that Israeli Jews are fighting for ISIS, even though most of those Israelis were Arabs and converts to Islam. HR gets the correction.

Israel and the Palestinians
• State Department: Endorsing a two state solution would make us biased.

“We are not going to state what the outcome has to be,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “It has to be workable to both sides. That’s the best view as to not really bias one side over the other, to make sure that they can work through it.”
• An Israeli-Arab was indicted as an accomplice in the murder of two policemen at the Temple Mount, which triggered weeks of Palestinian violence. Jerusalem Post coverage.

• Mohamed Fahmy, Al Jazeera English’s former Cairo bureau chief who was imprisoned in Egypt, told the Jerusalem Post that governments like Israel rightfully take a tough stance against Qatari network over its unethical methods:

“The Arabic channel and Qatar using this platform as a weapon against its neighbors left us English reporters as targets, and that is what Al Jazeera does, unfortunately, according to the research I conducted for the past two years.”

The network “continues to endanger lives of journalists because of dealings with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood” and other groups, he says.
Mohamed Fahmy

• UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon pushes back after US, Israeli criticism. AP updates the latest on Israeli and US efforts in the UN to beef up UNIFIL’s mandate.
• The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) update the latest on White House adviser Jared Kushner’s efforts to jump-start Mideast peace efforts.

• Hamas denounces Sudanese minister’s call for normalizing ties with Israel.

• Qatar’s diplomatic standoff with Saudi Arabia took a new twist when the Gulf state restored full diplomatic ties with Iran.

Commentary/Analysis
• A month from now, Iraqi Kurds will vote in a referendum on whether to break away from Iraq and become independent. The Kurds’ immediate neighbors — Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran — all oppose Kurdish independence, as do the US and Russia. Anshel Pfeffer examines the pros and cons of Israeli support.

There are a number of advantages for Israel in an independent Kurdistan. Its location astride Iran’s route to Syria and Lebanon is just the most obvious one. Kurdistan would be a headache not just for Iran, but for other potential rivals including Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Israeli businessmen are already welcome in Erbil, and the development needs of a new emerging and potentially pro-western nation would be worth billions. But Israel is loath at this point to do anything without coordination with the Americans . . .

In the short-term, the Kurds can create a lot of problems for Israel’s rivals in the region but for any long-term prospect of a regional alliance which will keep Iran out, Israel needs Turkey and Kurdistan to come to an understanding. The referendum won’t help that happen and the Kurdish expectations that Israel will swiftly recognize their independence are probably unfounded for now.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Noam Tibon: Can envoy Jason Greenblatt succeed where his predecessors failed?
– Aaron David Miller: Jared Kushner won’t find his job in Israel easy
– Ruthie Blum: Terrorists and tiaras
– Melanie Phillips: The Canaan falsehood
– Udi Dekel and Carmit Valensi: The Iranian threat in Syria: As bad as it seems?
– Alexandra Lukash and Nir Cohen: New Iranian threat ‘exposes the weakness of the nuclear agreement’
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): Did Iran poison Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman? (click via Twitter)

Featured image: CC BY Robert Couse-Baker; dollar CC BY-SA Dave Winer; Fahmy via YouTube/CBC News; Kurdish map via Wikimedia Commons;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08232017-putin-netanyahu/
Putin, Netanyahu Discuss Iranian Entrenchment in Syria
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi to discuss Iranian entrenchment in Syria. Although the two were still meeting as this roundup was published, Herb Keinon summed up what the coverage will look like:

For reporters who cover Netanyahu, the drill is well known.

Following the premier’s meeting with Putin, either he or one of his spokesmen will say that during the meeting he stressed Israel’s red lines in Syria: that Jerusalem will not tolerate an Iranian or Hezbollah presence on the Golan border; that Israel will not accept a permanent Iranian presence in Syria; and that Israel will act to ensure that game-changing weapons or capabilities are not transferred from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Netanyahu will be careful to praise the Russian-Israeli bilateral relations, and say that the deconfliction mechanism to prevent any accidental engagements between the Russian and Israeli air forces in Syrian skies – which he set up with Moscow immediately after Russia became militarily involved in Syria in 2015 – has proven itself very effective.

He will be careful not to say what the Russian leader’s response to any of this was, beyond saying that the Israeli messages were “understood.”

But these meetings are by no means a Netanyahu monologue. The Russians also have their position regarding Syria and overall Iranian intentions, and – based on a number of conversations with senior Russian diplomats – it goes like this: Russia has genuine interest in Syria. Raqqa, the one-time Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria, is only 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, from Grozny, Chechnya, in southern Russia, the distance from New York to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Putin Netanyahu
Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Sochi on August 23, 2017.

2. Picking up on Arab media, the Times of Israel reports that Mahmoud Abbas is considering dissolving the Palestinian Authority and pushing all out for unilateral statehood through the UN.

Abbas has already declared the Palestinians are no longer bound by the Oslo accords and I’ve lost track of all the times he threatened to dismantle the PA and hand responsibility for the West Bank over to Israel. But if Abbas follows through on this threat this time, it’s not clear to me what would actually change on a day-to-day basis. Here’s why:

Should Abbas dissolve the PA, according to the Al Hayat report, he would transfer governing power back to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the historic umbrella group for Palestinians. Abbas is head of the PLO.
Meanwhile, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki says 24 years of peace talks have achieved nothing and urged the world to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

Swiss cow3. As Swiss parliament deliberates banning kosher meat imports, Jewish leaders say the move would be a ‘massive limitation on religious freedom.’

The bill, which was introduced to the Swiss parliament in June, would make it illegal to bring in any meat slaughtered in what the law would deem to be an inhumane fashion. This would include both kosher and halal meat, where the animal is still conscious at the point of slaughter. A date for the vote has not yet been scheduled.
Around 18,000 Jews currently live in the Alpine country. Jewish ritual slaughter has been banned in Switzerland since 1893.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Egypt cancelled a meeting this afternoon between visiting White House adviser Jared Kushner and its foreign minister in response to the US withholding foreign aid. Reuters adds that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will still meet with Kushner and his delegation.

Two U.S. sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday that Washington had decided to deny Egypt $95.7 million in aid and to delay a further $195 million because of its failure to make progress on respecting human rights and democratic norms.
• Bloomberg News: Royal Dutch Shell is mulling buying gas from Israel and Cyprus gas for an Egypt plant.

• Ahead of the Netanyahu-Putin meeting, AP picked up on the latest developments in Tehran’s efforts to create a land bridge linking Iran to Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterranean.

A corridor would be a boost for Israel’s powerful enemy Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Iran currently ships weapons to Hezbollah mostly by flying them to Syria to be shipped on the ground to Lebanon.

The land route is by no means a fait accompli. Any road link will likely be a frequent target by Sunni insurgent groups.


Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Objective: Make Putin stop Iran
– Ben Dror Yemini: Turning a blind eye to extreme Right or Left anti-Semitism
– Seth Frantzman: Is Israel a model for Europe confronting terror? Yes and no
– Shimon Shiffer: With friends like Putin and Trump, Israel doesn’t need enemies
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Taking journalists hostage
– Dr. Shaul Shay: The Lebanese army’s alarming alliance with Hezbollah
– Elder of Ziyon: NYT says Kurds aren’t ready for independence – but Palestinians are
– Charles Bybelezer: The peace process merry-go-round



Featured image: CC BY Christine Rondeau;; Putin and Netanyahu via President of Russia; Switzerland CC BY-SA Martin Abegglen;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08222017-un-blacklist/
UN Pushing Blacklist of Firms Doing Business in Settlements
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago

Time elapse photo of solar eclipse over Huntington Beach, Calif. on May 20, 2012.
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Today’s Top Stories
1. Despite US and Israeli opposition, the UN Human Rights Council is pushing forward with a blacklist of international companies that do business in Israeli settlements. The Washington Post writes:

American companies on the list drawn up by the Geneva-based council include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline.com, Airbnb and others, according to people familiar with it. It is not clear whether the list has been finalized.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, has told U.S. officials he plans to publish the list by the end of the year and has asked for comments by Sept. 1 from countries where affected firms are headquartered, diplomats said.
2. For the first time, Hezbollah confirmed it used drones to bomb Islamic State positions near the Syrian-Lebanese border. Here’s the footage Hezbollah released. More at Reuters.



3. According to a confidential UN report seen by Reuters, “two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months.”

4. ‘Resistance Journalism’ Doesn’t Deserve Press Credentials: Al Jazeera Jerusalem bureau chief says it’s legitimate for a reporter to “resist Israel” through his work because it’s non-violent.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Switzerland stopped funds to a Palestinian non-governmental organization which failed to sever ties with terror groups. The Jerusalem Post picked up on a Swiss report.

• Haaretz: Egypt’s becoming an unexpected player in Syria, to Israeli delight and Iranian ire.
• PA threatens to cut all funds to Gaza.

Mubarak al Fadil al Mahdi
Sudanese Minister of Investment Mubarak al Fadil al Mahdi

• A high level Sudanese government minister expressed hope for normalizing ties with Israel. In an interview with Sudania 24 TV picked up by Haaretz, Minister of Investment Mubarak al Fadil al Mahdi said:
“There is no problem normalizing relations with Israel; the Palestinians normalized relations with Israel even Hamas is talking to Israel. The Palestinians receive tax money from Israel and electricity from Israel. The Palestinians sit with Israel and talk to Israel. They have disputes but they sit with them,” he said . . .

Fadil told the interviewer that the Palestinians bear a significant measure of responsibility for what happened to them.
Around the World
• 57 years after Israel spirited Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann out of Argentina on an El Al flight, the two countries announced the resumption of Tel Aviv-Buenos Aires flights on their respective national airlines.

• Europe adopts Israel-style security measures as terror becomes the new normal.

Indeed, commentaries by Richard Kemp, David Patrikarakos and Ariel Bolstein elaborate, while the INSS (Institute for National Security Studies) examines what Europe’s security challenges mean for the Israeli arms industry.

German police

• Australia’s ABC News explained to the JTA why it left Israel off the map:

“The story was about the repealing of a law in Lebanon that allowed rapists to escape punishment if they married their victims,” a senior executive for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. told JTA. “The map showed other countries where this law had already been repealed (in the blue) and countries where campaigners are actively trying to have it repealed (in the yellow).”

Israel, the executive explained, never had the law to begin with, so it was not included. Had it been included, the spokesman suggested, the criticism might have been even more intense.
• Vandals scrawl anti-Israel graffiti on Bulgarian Jewish monument

Commentary/Analysis
UNIFIL forces

• Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon took to the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) to urge the UN Security Council to beef up the mandate for the UNIFIL peackeepers in Southern Lebanon.
Over the past year alone, we have shared with the Security Council new information detailing how border towns have become Hezbollah strongholds. One out of three buildings in the village of Shaqra is now being used to store arms or launch attacks on Israel. We also shared with the council intelligence revealing how the Iranians use civilian airlines to smuggle dangerous arms into southern Lebanon. When the Second Lebanon War ended, Hezbollah had around 7,000 rockets. Today, they have more than 100,000.
• Ahead of tomorrow’s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Prof. Eyal Zisser and Jerusalem Post assess what’s in store.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Zoe Strimpel: Anti-Semitism 2.0: Why everything always comes back to the Jews
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: When suicide attacks are bad
– Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: The Temple Mount affair: What has changed?
– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: Beware media fearmongering
– Amb. Arye Mekel: The new US “peace team”: A test of will
– Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah: The future partition of Syria
– Moshe Arens: North Korea and Iran: Two different approaches for two dangerous nuclear projects


Featured image: CC BY jimnista; Mahdi via YouTube/Sudania24; police CC BY Robert Anders; UNIFIL via UNIFIL;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08202017-barcelona-aftermath/
Barcelona Attack: The Aftermath
Israel Daily News Stream10 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Three telling reactions to the Barcelona attack in which a van plowed through people in the Las Ramblas pedestrian mall, killing 13. First, the city’s chief rabbi says his community is doomed. Rabbi Meir Bar-Hen told the JTA he has encouraged Jews to leave and accused Spanish officials of not understanding the threat of Islamic terror.

Second, Catalonia’s BDS branch says European governments are responsible for last week’s terror attack in Barcelona.

Third, Hezbollah’s response suggests it’s only jihad when Israelis are targeted, right?

2. Rasmea Odeh lost her US citizenship and will be deported for lying about her 1970 conviction for her role in a pair of Jerusalem bombings.

Rasmea Odeh was interrupted three times by a judge as she used her court appearance in Detroit to criticize Israel and the United States and deny that she’s a terrorist.

“This is not a political forum for you to fan the flames of Israeli-Palestinian disputes. … It’s about the application you filled out,” said U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain, who threatened to find her in contempt and send her to jail.

3. There’s good reason to be concerned about the relationship between BDS and the rising Antifa movement. (Antifa is a collection of far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events. The name is portmanteau of “anti-fascist.) According to Inside Higher Ed and Legal Insurrection, BDS professors are helping organize an Antifa campus network.

Antifa will give BDS even more muscle to intimidate and threaten those who oppose the BDS agenda.
More on background on the Antifa at the JTA. Last word for now goes to Canadian columnist Lorrie Goldstein.

Anyone who compares Antifa 2 Allied soldiers fighting Nazis overlooks fact that the only Jews Antifa tolerates are the ones who hate Israel.
— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) August 20, 2017
Israel and the Palestinians
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to discuss Israeli concerns about Iranian entrenchment in Syria. More at the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel.

• A 17-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed while trying to stab a Border Policeman at a checkpoint at the Tapuah Junction on Saturday night.

Mideast Matters
chemical weapons• In a special report, Reuters examines how Syria managed to continue gassing its own people while the world looked on. Among the key points:

– “Syria’s declarations about the types and quantities of chemicals it possessed do not match evidence on the ground uncovered by inspectors.”

– Inspectors don’t accept as credible Syrian claims about the amounts of certain key chemicals the regime said were only used for research.

– At least 2,000 chemical bomb shells declared by Syria remain unaccounted for.

– “In Damascus, witnesses with knowledge of the chemical weapons program were instructed by Syrian military officials to alter their statements midway through interviews with inspectors, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.”

• Clashes kill two in Palestinian Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon.

Around the World
• Charlottesville says it provided protection to synagogue, refuting an initial account.

• A Berlin university has filed a criminal complaint against BDS activists who disrupted speeches by an Israeli MK and and a Holocaust survivor.

• Arab bands boycott Berlin pop festival because of Israel.

• The Australian ABC News aired a map of the Mideast that didn’t include Israel. The Daily Mail picked up after Aussie activist Avi Yemini called out the network.

• Winnipeg mayor denounces anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on on benches and sidewalks.

• Police in Alameda Calif. are investigating synagogue vandalism as a hate crime. Oakland’s KTVU notes:

Whether the vandalism was inspired by recent events in Charlottesville, VA, no one can say. But the current surge in intolerance seems unmistakable.
• London’s Sunday Times gauged reactions to the Dublin city council decision to fly a Palestinian flag over city hall for a full month — against the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Many Irish people took issue with a foreign flag being raised, particularly given the country’s neutrality.
• These two UK surveys are polls apart.
– 1 in 3 British Jews have considered emigrating due to anti-Semitism
– 88 percent of British Jews have not considered leaving UK

Commentary/Analysis
• Mohamed Fahmy, one of three Al Jazeera reporters previously jailed by Egypt, explains how the network supported the Muslim Brotherhood — in breach of a secret Saudi-Qatari agreement:

In Egypt’s prisons I interviewed Brotherhood members and non-journalists of the opposition who told me Al Jazeera had supplied them with transmission equipment, cameras and money, a technique I later learned the network applied in conflict zones such as Syria, Libya and Iraq . . .

“This gave Al Jazeera an advantage over their competitors as they were essentially recruiting protesters and fighters to become journalists and information gatherers for their news programming. And since the Syrian opposition (particularly those aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups) was ideologically harmonized with the Qatari policy in the Levantine country, the coverage often went straight to air without verification, clarification, or corroboration.
Mohamed Fahmy
Mohamed Fahmy

• Over at the Washington Post, Dana El Kurd, who is clearly no friend of Israel, examines what made Palestinian protests in East Jerusalem last month so successful. Spoiler alert: It’s because Israel allows Palestinians to demonstrate against Israel, unlike the PA, which doesn’t let Palestinians demonstrate against the PA.

My findings also help explain why the Jerusalem protests were effective: East Jerusalem, despite having been occupied in 1967 like the rest of the Palestinian territories, is unique in its lack of PA institutions. Palestinians there do not face an added layer of repression from an indigenous regime.

And although the occupation is repressive, how people react to an externally imposed force differs from how they react to their own leadership. While the occupation can spur rebellion, the PA’s direct repression in the areas it governs exacerbates polarization and affects the ability of different groups to coordinate.
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing on Charlottesville:

– Mirah Curzer: Does your progressivism include Jews?
– Micah Lakin Avni: Mark Zuckerberg: Hamas are ok, neo-Nazis are not
– Daniel Gordis: Watching Charlottesville from Jerusalem
– Marc Goldberg: Stop blaming Israel for Nazis in Charlottesville!

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Dr. Reuven Berko: Raed Salah exploiting Islam
– Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi: Hamas is restoring its alliance with Iran
– Charles Bybelezer: The next war with Hamas: If not now, when?
– Herb Keinon: Unraveling Cape Verde’s flip-flop on Israel
– Hen Mazzig and Emily Schrader: Well-intentioned anti-Semitism
– Dore Gold: A warning on Iran-North Korea missile cooperation

Featured image: CC BY Jon S; Fahmy CC BY Chatham House;

New York Museum Reinstates Israel Event
Israel Daily News Stream8 hours ago
http://honestreporting.com/idns-08172017-queens-museum/
Today’s Top Stories
1. The Queens Museum reversed its decision to cancel an Israeli event. The risk to the museum’s finances was heavy, and President and Executive Director Laura Raicovich’s ties to the BDS movement through a book she co-edited couldn’t be ignored.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind called to stop funding the Queens Museum following the report of the events cancellation. “The State of New York has made it clear that the BDS movement is unacceptable,” said Hikind. “I am calling on members of the NYC Council who have funded the Queens Museum . . . to pull their support of this museum until this blatant anti-Semite Ms. Raicovich is removed.”
Withering staff editorials in the New York Post and New York Daily News called for Raicovich’s dismissal.
Laura Raicovich

2. Israel’s High Court froze a contentious law which retroactively legalized unauthorized settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. The Knesset passed “the Regulation Bill” in February.

3. Israel’s Government Press Office revoked the press credentials of Al Jazeera reporter Elias Karram pending a hearing. The GPO took the step after learning of a interview last year in which Karram, an Israeli-Arab, made some comments calling into question his personal objectivity:

Karam said in an interview to the Muslim Brotherhood television channel Dar Al-Iman in May 2016 that “as a Palestinian journalist who is in an occupied area or a conflict area, journalistic work is an integral part of the resistance and of political and educational action.

“A journalist fulfills his role in the resistance through his pen, voice or camera, because he is part of this nation and is resisting in his unique way,” he added.
Karram, who lives in Nazareth, has held press credentials since 2011. In recent days, Israeli officials vowed to shut down Al Jazeera, accusing the Qatari-based network of bias and incitement. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states took similar moves and have demanded Qatar shut down the news station as one condition for ending their diplomatic crisis. Haaretz adds that Israel’s Foreign Ministry recently warned that imposing sanctions on Al Jazeera would harm the country’s public relations.

More on the story at Haaretz and the Times of Israel.

Elias Karram
Al Jazeera correspondent Elias Karram

Israel and the Palestinians
• Over the past week, Israeli police have arrested 72 Palestinians accused of violence during last month’s Temple Mount tensions.

• PA officials are weighing further punitive measures against Hamas. The Jerusalem Post explains:

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is considering either forcing another group of Palestinian Authority employees working in the health and education sectors in the Gaza Strip into early retirement or slashing social-welfare payments allocated to the territory as a continuation of its measures to pressure Hamas to cede control of the Strip, Ahmad Majdalani, a close confidante of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said on Wednesday.
• Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, the outgoing commander of the Israel Air Force, confirmed to Haaretz that the IAF has hit nearly 100 Syrian and Hezbollah arms convoys since 2012. Although Israeli officials have made some coy confirmations, this is the first time a high level military officer has shed light on the scope of the air strikes.

• Who gets the 72 virgins when this happens?

Ynet

• Worth reading: Bloomberg News gauges Israel’s efforts to secure a seat on the UN Security Council. “History suggests Israel, one of 66 countries never elected to the council, faces an uphill struggle to secure at least 128 votes, or two-thirds of the 193 member states, in a secret ballot,” however:

“They’ve done their campaign with a level of sophistication which is remarkable, doing it systemically, arranging fact-finding missions and bilateral agreements,” said Syed Akbaruddin, India’s ambassador to the UN. “They start with a disadvantage in that there are countries that are not disposed to vote for them, but they have cultivated certain countries to shore up constituencies.” . . .

With the balloting conducted in secret, Saudi Arabia and its Sunni neighbors might cast their ballots for Israel on the bet it would take a tough stand against their common archenemy Iran.

UN Security Council

Around the World
• Australian Nazi group plasters Melbourne schools with violently racist and anti-Semitic posters.

The posters — the work of a Nazi youth organization that styles itself the “Antipodean Resistance” — used ugly racist pejoratives to denigrate black and Asian people and call for the extermination of Jews. One poster depicted the classic Nazi image of a grasping, hook-nosed Jew alongside the words “Multiculturalism,” “Degeneracy” and “Reject Jewish Poison.”
• Booking.com dropped from its website the Swiss hotel that featured signs singling out Jews.

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Amb. Alan Baker: Jordan’s refusal to permit return of Israel’s ambassador breaks international law and peace treaty
– Gideon Biger: Israeli enclaves in Palestine?
– Charles Bybelezer: Home demolitions: Terror deterrent or rights violation?
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Just say no to peace talks
– Amb. Daniel Shapiro: Is Trump’s Mideast peace effort dead in the water?
– Gary Rosenblatt: Are the college years too late for Israel education?

Featured image: CC BY woodleywonderworks;; Raicovich via Facebook/Queens Museum; Karram via Facebook/Elias Karram; Security Council via UN Photo/Manuel Elias;

Iran Freezes Assets of BBC Staffers
http://honestreporting.com/idns-08162017-iran-bbc/
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Without giving a reason, an Iranian court froze the assets of more than 150 current and former BBC staffers in Iran. See Reuters, and of course, the BBC, which condemned the order as a move to silence journalists.

Despite being banned in Iran, BBC Persian TV, radio and web content manages to reach some 13 million Iranians, according to the BBC.

Laura Raicovich

2. A New York museum abruptly cancelled an event organized by Israel’s UN mission — a re-enactment of the 1947 UN’s vote which created the state of Israel.
A Queens Museum official said the board of directors didn’t want to hold what it called a “political event.” The Jerusalem Post reports Ambassador Danny Danon’s staff uncovered another facet to the cancellation — the museum’s President and Executive Director Laura Raicovich:

Following an investigation by Danon’s staff, it was found that Raicovich has an anti-Israel background: She is the editor of a book entitled “Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency and Cultural Production.” In its online description of the book, the publisher states that “Boycott and divestment are essential tools for activists around the globe.”

In the book, Raicovich included an essay entitled “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: Reasons to Support BDS,” which justifies and endorses the movement’s actions against Israel.
3. You can probably count on your fingers the number of pen pals North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has around the world. Add a finger for PA President Mahmoud Abbas. He praised North Korean ‘freedom fighters’ in friendly telegram to Kim.
4. Why Did CSM Call an Anti-Israel Ideologue a ‘Historian?’ A Christian Science Monitor interview with Ilan Pappe applies double standards against Israel.

5. How an Underground Wall Can Save Lives – HR in a Minute: At $1 billion and 37 miles, will Israel’s underground barrier along Gaza border really save lives? Our new series of animated shorts, “HonestReporting In a Minute” explores.

Israel and the Palestinians
• The Times of Israel examines Sheikh Raed Salah’s role in spreading the myth that Israel endangers the Al-Aqsa mosque. Even Waqf officials seem powerless against the extremist sheikh.

The idea that “Al-Aqsa is in danger” is not new — it dates back to the 1920s, and continues to be propagated by all the major Palestinian political players including Hamas and Fatah. But experts interviewed by The Times of Israel said Salah has done more to spread and ostensibly legitimize the idea than any other person in history.
• Israeli security forces demolished the home of Omar al-Abed, who murdered Yossi, Haya and Elad Salomon in their Halamish home in July.

• Egypt opened the Rafah crossing with Gaza for the first time since May to allow Palestinian pilgrims to travel to Mecca.

Rafah border crossing
Palestinians wait to cross into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, on August 16, 2017. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90

Around the World
• Rare footage shows troops from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps fighting in close quarters combat in Syria against Islamic State fighters. More at Ynet.

• Alan Zimmerman describes a very chilling Shabbat experience at Charlottesville’s Congregation Beth Israel:

For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple. Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either. Perhaps the presence of our armed guard deterred them. Perhaps their presence was just a coincidence, and I’m paranoid. I don’t know.

Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, “There’s the synagogue!” followed by chants of “Seig Heil” and other anti-Semitic language. Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols . . .

Local police faced an unprecedented problem that day, but make no mistake, Jews are a specific target of these groups, and despite nods of understanding from officials about our concerns – and despite the fact that the mayor himself is Jewish – we were left to our own devices. The fact that a calamity did not befall the Jewish community of Charlottesville on Saturday was not thanks to our politicians, our police, or even our own efforts, but to the grace of God.
See also an account by Jewish U. of Virginia Professor Michelle Kisliuk. Last word for now goes to Asher Huey.


Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ben-Dror Yemini: We must stop Raed Salah and his ilk
– Nadav Shragai: Raed Salah and the libel that kills
– Ira Rifkin: After Charlottesville, journalists should cover anti-Semitism as distinct from ‘racism’
– Nathan Englander: What Jewish children learned from Charlottesville
– Yoni Ben Menachem: Abbas’ political battles escalate
– Filip Ejdus, Alaa Tartir: Policing Palestine
– Dennis Ross: US should block further Iranian expansion in Syria
– Michael Armstrong: Missile countermeasures: North Korea’s threat, Israel’s experience
– Jennifer Oriel: The shame is that the ABC is sleeping with our enemies

Featured image: CC BY-SA Estitxu Carton;; Raicovich via YouTube/St. Francis College;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08152017-raed-salah/
Israel Arrests Extremist Sheikh Raed Salah for Incitement
Israel Daily News Stream10 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Police arrested Sheikh Raed Salah for incitement, suspicion of supporting terror acts and membership in an illegal organization.

Salah has repeatedly spent time in jail for incitement, especially claiming that Israel is threatening to take over the Al-Aqsa mosque. He also founded the northern chapter of the Islamic Movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Israel banned in 2015. (Here’s why.)

Raed Salah
Sheikh Raed Salah

2. The PA freed five Palestinian journalists arrested during a crackdown on free expression.

3. Jerusalem Post: The UNRWA sealed a Hamas tunnel running underneath one of its schools in a Gaza refugee camp. The tunnel was discovered in June by workers renovating the building during summer recess.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli security forces uncovered a Hamas terrorist payment network which funneled thousands of shekels to the families of convicted terrorists. Details at Ynet.

• Israeli and Egyptian officials are discussing re-opening Israel’s embassy in Cairo, Haaretz reports. The embassy was closed eight months ago over unspecified security concerns.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planning to visit Mexico and Argentina in September, which would make him the first sitting Israeli PM to go to Latin America.

Since [2014], Israel’s ties with Argentina have improved considerably as a result of the victory in the 2015 presidential election of Mauricio Macri, with whom Netanyahu has developed a strong relationship.

The trip to Mexico also sends a signal that its abstention in UNESCO votes on Jerusalem last year, as well as friction over a tweet Netanyahu posted regarding the efficacy of a border wall, are not hindering ties between the countries.
Mexico City
Mexico City

• Iran denies that it banned two of its soccer players who played against an Israeli team in Europe.

• Outgoing Times of London correspondent Gregg Carlstrom tweeted his farewell to Israel.


Around the World
• Jewish writer Dahlia Lithwick describes the scene in Charlottesville.

• Charlottesville’s Jewish mayor is an expert on demagogues, and now on anti-Semitism too.

• Tempers flared at Chicago’s Slutwalk as Jewish marchers were told the feminist movement has no room for Zionism. Tablet‘s Gretchen Hammond reports that “Zionist marchers waving Star-of-David posters were met with giant red umbrellas designed to block out their message.” More at the JTA.

• German media report: Iran and Russia violated UN weapons sanctions.

UK money• British MPs demand universities stop accepting donations from dictatorships after the Daily Telegraph “identified dozens of cases where the UK’s leading universities have accepted sponsorship from regimes accused of links to terrorism or human rights violations,” particularly Arab regimes:

“By donating to higher education institutions, Arab and Islamic states are able to dictate a research agenda and influence public opinion in a way which we would not allow for our political parties,” he said.

“Foreign donors can not only shape the debate, but they can also influence students and impressionable young minds.”
• Times of Israel: Crime, unemployment and toxic mix of government corruption and demagoguery are driving a surge in Brazilian aliyah.

• Swiss hotelier apologizes for signs telling Jews to shower before entering pool.

• Rome reverses decision to honor Yasser Arafat as a “peace activist.”

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Avi Issacharoff: The terrible timing of the newest American peace delegation
– Charles Bybelezer: The peace process merry-go-round
– Bassam Tawil: The Palestinian-US honeymoon is over
– Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Israel-Jordan peace agreement: The emperor has no clothes
– Smadar Perry: Israel’s closed embassies in Cairo and Amman
– Rachel Avraham: The importance of saving Neda Amin
– Ariel Bolstein: Israeli-Kurdish friendship worth fostering
– Noah Klieger: Why am I not surprised by displays of anti-Semitism in Sweden?
– Yair Rosenberg: ‘Jews will not replace us’: Why white supremacists go after Jews
– Shmuel Rosner: Netanyahu’s fate doesn’t determine Israel’s future
– Ben-Dror Yemini: A letter to the PM: stop the media incitement now

• Last but not least, Fisk’s being Fisk again.

Featured image: CC BY-NC Ed Stevenson; Salah via YouTube/AP Archive; Mexico City CC BY Pablo Gonzalez; money CC BY Images Money;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08132017-military-rule/
Hamas Mulling Gaza Military Rule
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. Hamas is considering replacing civilian rule in Gaza with military rule. Ynet explains that Hamas would first relinquish its “civilian control,” then create a power vacuum paving the way for the terror group to establish direct military rule over the Strip.

The proposal is perceived as a threat to Abbas, as it pushes to create a military regime in Gaza without civilian rule, a reality that could easily devolve into unbridled violence. Hamas is apparently also aiming to have Arab countries pressure Abbas to lift sanctions off the Gaza Strip, in an effort to prevent a possible military escalation against Israel.
2. Jewish journalists Ron Kampeas and Nathan Guttman covered the Charlottesville violence. Tweet of the day goes to Jeff Jacoby.

My father, a Holocaust survivor, turned 92 today. He saw images like these as a young man in Europe … and now as an old man in America. pic.twitter.com/cmuWYMJbzB
— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) August 13, 2017
3. During the height of the Temple Mount tensions, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Muslims around the world to flood the holy site with visits. Now, Hurriyet News reports that Turkish Airlines is offering serious discounts for round trip tickets.

The move came after citizens launched a social media campaign demanding a discount for flights to Jerusalem using the hashtag “#ThyKudüse?ndirimYap” (Turkish Airlines make a discount to Jerusalem).

4. Cherry Picking: Conscientiously Objectionable: The Daily Telegraph rehashes a non-story about an Israeli conscientious objector — minus the nuances of the original report.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Media Line examines UNIFIL’s mandate — stuck between Israel and Hezbollah. The US wants to expand peacekeepers’ work to include monitoring Hezbollah violations. But with Hezbollah already possessing thousands of missiles, is UNIFIL even relevant anymore?

To reverse the tide, [former Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor] contended that “the US should seek a UN Security Council resolution amending 1701 and providing UNIFIL with explicit powers to disarm Hizbullah and demilitarize south Lebanon under Chapter 7 of the UN charter, the section that deals with peace enforcement.” He also highlights the fact that American taxpayers are on the hook for 43% of UNIFIL’s $488 million budget in 2017, and suggested that “Congress make that funding conditional on performance.”
UNIFIL
Irish UNIFIL forces in 2013

• Greek Orthodox church aims to block controversial property sale in Israeli court.

• A Palestinian woman stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli man in Jerusalem on Saturday. On Thursday, Israeli security arrested five Palestinians en route to carry out a large terrorist attack. According to Israel HaYom, the five “left suicide notes expressing their plans to commit a terrorist attack in Israel.”

• Jared Kushner’s heading back to the Mideast. The New York Times examines what he hopes to accomplish.

Around the World
• Thousands of Iranians are venting their anger and frustration on social media after Tehran banned two soccer stars for playing in a match against Israel. FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, confirmed to Reuters that it is investigating.

If a country’s [Football Association] is suspended, it means both the national team and its clubs are barred from international competition.

Iran have already qualified for next year’s World Cup, making it an especially delicate matter for FIFA.
Iranians leave thousands of comments on @FIFAcom's #Instagram page in support of their banned national soccer players #NoBan4OurPlayers pic.twitter.com/lxy99Ra7cL
— Omid Memarian (@Omid_M) August 10, 2017
• Jews flee Venezuela amid growing political violence:

While Venezuela once had one of the largest Jewish communities in the region, numbering some 25,000 in 1999, only about 9,000 Jews are believed to remain in the country . . .

“Because there is the image of Jews as wealthy people — that they have money — they are a target, to kidnap them and demand a ransom for them,” he told Channel 2. “It is not because they are Jews, it is because they have money.”
• Frankfurt’s deputy mayor wants to ban the “deeply anti-Semitic” BDS. The Jerusalem Post reports that Uwe Becker, submitted a bill “that would ban municipal funds and space being used for activities that aim to boycott Israel” and “also urge private companies to refrain from commerce with BDS groups.”

Frankfurt

• Just satire:

Palestinian Authority Grants Honorary License To Charlottesville Driver

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians escalate war on journalists
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: Will Israel feel the heat of Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric?
– Peter Wertheim: Recognizing a Palestinian state before a peace agreement with Israel undermines international law
– Elizabeth Redden: Does bill against Israel boycott pose threat to academic freedom?
– Ephraim Kam and Zaki Shalom: US policy on regime change in Iran
– Giulio Meotti: In France, a curious fact emerges: Only the insane murder Jews
– Dr. Ronen Yitzhak: Abdullah’s friendly reminder to Abbas
– Boaz Bismuth: The Palestinians’ biggest problem is the Palestinians

Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Rob; UNIFIL CC BY Irish Defence Forces; Frankfurt CC BY Carsten Frenzl

Expelled From Turkey, Dissident Iranian Blogger Arrives In Israel
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. Times of Israel Persian blogger Neda Amin arrived safely in Israel this morning. Amin was at risk of being sent to Iran when Turkish authorities sought to deport the 32-year-old writer. Amin, who wrote about women’s issues in her native Iran, fled for Turkey in 2014.

Later in the day, she told reporters she might seek permanent residency in Israel, or perhaps citizenship. And editor David Horovitz was finally able to tell the story behind the story: How Neda Amin came to Israel.


2. In a conference call with reporters, a senior IDF officer said that in event of war with Hamas, Israel would blow up Gaza houses covering Hamas tunnels, then got unusually specific about two specific homes. Here’s part of what Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, as quoted by the Times of Israel.

The military provided reporters with both satellite images of the alleged Hamas tunnel covers in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya and their geographic coordinates: 31°33’05.9?N 34°28’07.9?E and 31°32’45.2?N, 34°29’52.8?E . . .

The army’s satellite photograph notes the approximate location of the tunnel shaft in the building’s southern corner . . .

The army said the second site is a home owned by Omar Muhammad Mahmoud Hamad, where he lives with his five children in Beit Lahiya. Hamad’s father and brother also live in the house. The military said Hamad is an active Hamas member.
IDF map

Zamir also elaborated on Israel’s underground barrier along the Gaza border to block terror tunnels. See Ynet for reaction from Israelis living near Gaza.

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3. Israeli wins Thai boxing medal after Palestinian opponent refuses to compete. The Palestinians freely confirmed to Maan News that the forfeit was a political decision:

Abu al-Hajj was set to spar against an Israeli opponent in the final rounds of the competition, but refused to do so, “as there has not yet been an official Palestinian decision over whether to face Israeli athletes in any sporting event.”
As a result of the forfeit, Amit Mdah, 16, of the predominately Druze and Christian village of Kisra-Sumei in the Western Galilee took the bronze medal by default at the IFMA Youth Muay Thai World Championships on Tuesday. More at the Jerusalem Post.

4. Which Country is Missing From Terror List on Australia’s #1 News Site?: Editors seem to think car-ramming attacks don’t happen in Israel, only in Europe and Australia.

Israel and the Palestinians
• The Jerusalem Post sheds more light on the five Palestinian “journalists” arrested by the PA on Tuesday night. I put quote marks around the word journalists because all or most work for Hamas-linked media, which does not produce journalism.

In the view of the journalist who spoke with The Jerusalem Post the arrests might be aimed at pressuring Hamas to release Fouad Jaradah, a reporter for the PA’s Palestine TV, who was arrested in Gaza on June 8 and was later accused of collaborating with the authority.
Before deploying the press freedom hashtags, it’s worth reminding ourselves: Who is a journalist?

• While Neda Amin was saying hello to Israel, former Reuters bureau chief Luke Baker was tweeting farewell.


• Israel released from custody a Palestinian UN official who had been detained on suspicion of unspecified security offenses. Hamdan Timraz, who served as deputy head of the UN Department of Safety and Security, had been held for a month after a court decided not to charge him. Ynet coverage.

• We now know Israel explored the possibility of detente with North Korea 25 years ago. The gist of it all was to begin investing in North Korea if Pyongyang would stop selling arms to Israel’s enemies. Israeli officials secretly visited North Korea but nothing came of the courtship except a lot of fingerpointing between Israeli’s Foreign Ministry and Mossad. More at the Times of Israel.

North Korea
• Meet Sandra Solomon, a Palestinian ‘taught to hate Israel’ who is now a Christian Zionist.

Around the World
• French Jews say car-ramming attack shows indifference to anti-Semitism.

• “The expansion of Iranian regime institutions in Germany has prompted the opening of an inquiry by the Green Party in the Bundestag on Friday to assess Tehran’s anti-Israel and espionage activities.” Hmmmmm.

• Shahak Shapira’s spray can video stunt prompts Twitter to act on hateful tweets. AP followed up:

By Wednesday, Twitter had deleted three tweets, suspended four accounts and withheld another seven accounts in Germany.

Fifteen other tweets, including some containing anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti-black comments, were still online.


Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Aaron David Miller: Netanyahu faces the political crisis of his life
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Al Jazeera and Israel’s democracy test
– Jonathan Tobin: Resurrecting the Arab boycott
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Abbas’ infusion from the king
– Gary Rosenblatt: Could pushing Iran on nuke deal backfire?



Featured image: CC BY-SA tedeytan; North Korea CC0 Pixabay;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08092017-north-korea/

What Do North Korean Tensions Mean for Israel?
Israel Daily News Stream9 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. As tensions rise over North Korea’s nuclear missiles program, what does the escalation mean for Israel? Among other things, greater interest in Israel’s missile defense technology.

Does Japan need an Israeli Arrow 3 interceptor missile?

You can be sure Israel, Iran and other Arab states will carefully watch how events unfold.

Arrow-3
An Arrow 3 test launch in December, 2015

2. A new Israeli policy allows East Jerusalemites permits to visit Gaza if they are in a position to help ease the humanitarian situation in the Strip.

The new East Jerusalem policy is intended mostly for businesspeople and physicians who can contribute to Gaza’s economic development and the improvement of its civilian infrastructure.
3. The US wants to beef up UNIFIL’s mandate in Southern Lebanon. Specifically, US Ambassador Nikki Haley wants the UN peacekeepers to report on Hezbollah violations of bringing arms and military infrastructure near the Israeli border

4. HR Prompts Telegraph to Change Temple Mount “Palestine” Photo: The Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock are located in Jerusalem, where Israel is sovereign.

5. HR Fixes Double Trouble at the IBT: Two Israeli policemen weren’t murdered after Israel installed metal detectors outside the Temple Mount.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli aircraft struck a pair of Hamas bases in Gaza in retaliation for a rocket fired from the Strip which landed in an open area near Ashkelon. Times of Israel coverage.

• Haaretz: Israel held secret talks with US and Russian officials over the Syrian ceasefire, and then Jerusalem was shocked when the announced ceasefire’s terms “contradicted virtually all the positions Israel had presented” regarding the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria:

If the Iranians do not leave Syria, Israel warned, according to the official, the country will become a base for missiles that will threaten Israel and Jordan, like the situation in Lebanon and Gaza. Iranian presence in Syria could also change the balance in Syria between Shi’ites and Sunnis and undermine the stability of nearby Sunni states, Israel further warned.
• Oops: The African state of Cape Verde denied it will start backing Israel at the UN.

• Abbas issues new demands of Israel, but quietly continues arresting terror suspects.

• According to AFP, five Palestinian journalists have been arrested by PA security forces in recent days.

• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to visit Israel and the West Bank later this month.

Antonio Guterres
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

Around the World
• Swedish police are investigating an anti-Israel protest for anti-Semitism. The JTA picked up on The Local-Sweden‘s coverage.

• Nice to see Gretchen Hammond land on her feet at Tablet after she was removed from her reporting duties at the Windy City Times in June. It was Hammond to broke the story of three women who were kicked out of Chicago’s Dyke March for bringing gay pride flags featuring Jewish stars.

• Gotta like the way Shahak Shapira fought back against Twitter’s lack of response to disgusting anti-Semitic, racist, misogynistic and homophobic tweets. He stenciled the worst ones outside Twitter’s Hamburg office. More on the story and his video at Deutsche Welle.

Commentary/Analysis
• Australian Jewish activist Mark Leibler responds to journalist John Lyons.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Yehudah Mirsky: To secure peace, Palestinians must accept Jewish history
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Petty in pink
– Ariel Bolstein: Al Jazeera is a weapon
– Dr. Jasser Al-Harbash: The sight of an imprisoned ex-PM illustrates superiority of Israel’s justice system over the Arabs’
– Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian ‘creativity for hate’
– Yossi Kuperwasser: For peace, Palestinians must change their narrative
– Denis MacEoin: An open letter to Omar al-Abed
– Pinhas Inbari: Who are the Palestinians?
– Dr. Yaron Friedman: Once ISIS is eliminated, Hezbollah will take its place
– Maher Gabra: Imam who called for annihilation of all Jews is in fact routine
– Naftali Bennett: Iran is using Syria to advance toward the Mediterranean (click via Twitter)


Featured image: CC BY Pedro Ribeiro Simes;; Arrow-3 via US Dept. of Defense; Guterres CC BY-NC-ND UN Geneva;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08072017-netanyahu-investigations/
PA: Peace Talks Pointless While Netanyahu Under Investigation
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinian officials told Haaretz that peace talks are a non-starter while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a criminal investigation:

Associates of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recalled the atmosphere that prevailed when Ehud Olmert had to resign as premier, and the messages conveyed at the time by senior Israeli and American officials were that no progress could be made with a prime minister who was suspected of crimes. Moreover, they note that as opposed to Olmert, Netanyahu doesn’t have much to offer on the diplomatic front . . .
 
According to the same source, the Palestinian leadership is beginning to believe that U.S. President Donald Trump won’t present any initiative in the near term, and even if the White House intends to do so it will prefer to wait until Netanyahu’s situation is clarified. If the investigations lead to Netanyahu being replaced or to new elections, the Palestinians say, everything will have to be reevaluated.
Police have launched two separate investigations of the prime minister. In one, referred to as Case 1000, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu are suspected of receiving thousands of shekels worth of illicit gifts from wealthy benefactors. The other, known as Case 2000, deals with an alleged arrangement in which the prime minister was to take measures reducing the influence of Israel HaYom in exchange for more favorable coverage by rival paper Yediot Aharonot. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing in both cases.

Though police have been investigating for months, pressure on Netanyahu has risen in recent days as his former chief of staff Ari Harow turned state’s witness. (Disclosure: Harow briefly worked for HonestReporting more than a decade ago.)

There are two other corruption investigations in which Netanyahu is not a suspect, but people close to him are. Case 3000 regards suspected fraud by people close to the PM during the purchase of several naval vessels, while Case 4000 deals with securities fraud and conflicts of interest between officials at the Communications Ministry and Bezeq.

Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

2. Interviewed by the Jerusalem Post, a PA official responsible for disbursing terror stipends to Palestinian prisoners and their families spun the payments as positive for the West Bank.

“This assistance has never encouraged terrorism, the opposite is true,” said Issa Qaraqe, head of the commission for detainees and ex-detainees, who holds the rank of minister in the Palestinian Authority. “This social and humanitarian assistance creates a kind of stability in the Palestinian society. Cutting the assistance is what will lead to extremism.”
3. Jordan’s King Abdullah visited Ramallah for the first time in five years. He and PA chief Mahmoud Abbas discussed the Temple Mount and other issues.

.@KingAbdullahII shook like 30 hands, but only one man makes it into the tweet: the Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein https://t.co/qAoaraWQks
— Dov Lieber (@DovLieber) August 7, 2017
By the way, Palestinians are unexpectedly clamoring for Israel to return its embassy staff to Amman.

Hundreds of Jordanian passports are being held in the embassy awaiting processing for entry permits to Israel. Most of the passports belong to Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin who want to visit relatives in Israel or the Palestinian territories, or to businessmen with direct ties to the Jordanian royal family and the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who are being prevented from traveling anywhere abroad without their passports.
4. HR Senior Editor Daniel Pomerantz appeared yesterday on i24’s Spin Room. He discussed Israel and Trump and the Hebron shooting sentence along wiht guests MK Nurit Koren and journalist/activist Tami Molad Hayo. Watch the video.



Israel and the Palestinians
• Is Israel restricting Mahmoud Abbas from leaving Ramallah?

• Communications Minister Ayoub Kara explained to reporters his plan for shutting down Al Jazeera in Israel. We’re talking about revoking press permits, asking cable and satellite networks to block Al Jazeera transmissions and additional legislation. Kara also cited other countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates which already shuttered the Qatar-based network.

Al Jazeera’s response basically amounts to “How dare the Mideast’s only democracy take action against us?”

• The Washington Post looks at the “wasted generation” of Gaza youth, who grew up under Hamas, unemployed and unable to leave the Strip.

But in many interviews, in their torn-just-so jeans and fresh white sneakers, Gaza’s young people today say they would rather fight for a job in Tel Aviv than fight Israelis.
 
“If the borders were open, I’d work in Israel in a minute. I got absolutely no problem with that. Everybody would work in Israel,” said Iyad Abu Heweila, 24, who graduated with a degree in English education two years ago but now spends his days hanging out.
• Worth reading: Aviva Klompas describes A Day in Area ‘A’ as she joined a group of American academics visiting a refugee camp and a high ranking PA minister.

Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Alan Johnson: When ‘alternative facts’ kill
– Eric Mandel: Does Israel Anti-Boycott Act infringe on free speech?
– Ronni Shaked: Israel is going to miss Mahmoud Abbas
– Daniel Pipes: Weakening Palestinian rejectionism
– Mishka Gora: Blaming the Jews in Australia

Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Stefano Corso; Netanyahu via YouTube/IsraeliPM;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08062017-israel-asylum/
Israel Offers Asylum to Iranian Blogger
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel has offered asylum to an Iranian-born writer who blogged for the Times of Israel from Turkey. Turkish officials sought to deport Neda Amin back to Iran, which she had fled years earlier because of her writing on women’s issues. More at Israel HaYom and Reuters.

Neda Amin

2. An Israeli court ruled to revoke the citizenship of a convicted terrorist today.

Alaa Ziad from the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm was sentenced one year ago to 25 years in prison for four attempted murders following an October 11, 2015 terrorist attack, in which he both ran over and stabbed two soldiers and two civilians, one of whom was a 15-year-old girl, at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel near Hadera.
 
The court ruled on Sunday that in place of citizenship Ziad would be granted temporary residency, which would be renewed from time to time, according to the interior minister’s judgment.
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3. Concerned about Islamic State in the Sinai digging tunnels threatening Israeli communities adjacent to the Israel-Egypt-Gaza border, the IDF will build an underground barrier along a three km stretch. “Expected to be complete within one-and-a-half years, the new barrier will set Israel back NIS 3.4 billion,” Ynet reports.

Gaza Strip

Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel busted a Hamas money-laundering ring involving personnel in Turkey, Hebron and Gaza. The Jerusalem Post explains:

. . . the investigation revealed that $200,000 had been laundered in that manner. In addition, the construction of a multi-million dollar concrete plant financed by Hamas was planned, with the aim of laundering more money.
• PA chief Mahmoud Abbas insisted he’ll maintain financial pressure on Hamas.

• Israel arrested 15 more Palestinians around eastern Jerusalem last night on suspicion of instigating Temple Mount riots.

• Times of Israel: Senegal and Guinea, two Muslim-majority Africa states, will send their first-ever envoys to Israel this week.

• Details are scant, but a small drone from Gaza fell in Israeli territory on Saturday.

• Israeli developed a new system capable of identifying explosive devices from afar, reports Ynet.

• I really don’t understand why AP and Reuters are wasting reporters’ time on the latest artwork appearing on the Israeli security barrier. Is there nothing more important they could be spending their time on?

Around the World
Kevin Myers• Closing the chapter on Kevin Myers, the embattled Irish columnist denied he’s an anti-Semite, but acknowledged he deserved to be fired for his recent commentary noting that two of the BBC’s highest paid female presenters are Jewish.

See JTA coverage or listen to the full Myers interview on RTE Radio One.

“It was stupid of me, the encapsulation of such a complex issue in a single sentence,” Myers said, referring to a line in a July 30 column that played on the stereotype of Jews as hard bargainers. “One of my flaws is to deal with major issues with throwaway lines.” . . .
 
In his first comments on the incident, Myers told RTE Radio One that at least “five or six” other Sunday Times employees would have overseen the column before it went to print.
 
“A number of people nodded on duty and let something through that shouldn’t have gone through,” he said.
 
However, Myers called himself the “author of his own misfortune” and took responsibility.
• Roger Waters, the anti-Semitic pro-BDS rocker now touring the US, was denounced in critical op-eds in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Nashville Tennessean ahead of upcoming gigs in those two cities. And the Washington Post picked up on a video response to Waters by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.

I have a feeling Jewish activists in Newark, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and all the other cities on Waters’ Us+Them tour will be taking action as well.

• British Co-op banned from four US states over BDS policies.

Florida, Illinois, New York and Arizona have implemented the proscriptions against the Co-op, which has suffered a series of controversies since adopting its policy five years ago.
 
Co-op supermarkets in Britain have refused to stock products from Israeli West Bank settlements since 2009, and the policy was extended in 2012 to include barring any engagement with Israeli suppliers known to work with the settlements.
• Australian Jews are up in arms after a local council shot down plans for a new Sydney synagogue citing fears of a possible terror attack.

Jewish leaders are shocked the decision appears to suggest they cannot freely practice their religion because they are the target of hate by Islamist extremists — and that the council has used their own risk assessment of the threat posed by IS against it.
 
The head of the local Jewish community said the council and the court had effectively stifled freedom of religion and rewarded terrorism.
But the council insists it isn’t to blame.

Sydney

• Germany’s taking BDS awfully seriously, judging from this development reported by the Jerusalem Post:

A criminal complaint filed against three BDS activists who allegedly launched physical and verbal tirades at MK Aliza Lavie and an Israeli survivor of the Holocaust at a June event in Berlin has been sent to a police division responsible for political extremism, a spokeswoman for the authorities told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
• Sanity prevails at Frankfurt’s Goethe University, whose student council equated BDS with the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.

• Two Iranian soccer players who play for a Greek team were condemned by Iran’s soccer federation for playing in a match against an Israeli team, reports AP.

Commentary/Analysis
Jerusalem• Worth reading: David Koren and Ben Avrahami, both advisors on east Jerusalem affairs for the Jerusalem Municipality, take the pulse of eastern Jerusalem, examining Palestinian nationalism, the rise of Islamic religious identity, the Temple Mount as a flashpoint, and increasing normalization of ties with Israeli government authorities. Their piece in HaShiloach has a lot to chew on, so don’t try reading it all at once.

• Palestinian scholar Bassam Tawil has a bone to pick with the Foreign Press Association in Israel.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Ruthie Blum: Sex, lies and terrorism
– Alex Fishman: Decades-long Jerusalem activity going down the drain
– Raphael Ahren: Temple Mount crisis ended Trump’s Palestinian honeymoon. Kushner made things worse
– Yardena Schwartz: Jerusalem’s forever crisis
– Ronni Shaked: Israel is going to miss Mahmoud Abbas
– Michael Wilner: Kushner rejects ‘history lessons’ while still reliving them
– Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher and Orni Petruschka: The inevitable next conflagration
– Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The failure of liberalism
– Jamie Palmer: The left and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The path to righteous hatred
– Andrew Bolt: Bondi synagogue ruling over terror fears shames Australia
– Jonathan Tobin: It’s not about flags: The real problem with Jewish-Palestinian dialogue
– Zvi Bar’el: Hezbollah shows who’s really in charge of the Syria-Lebanon border
– MSP Jeremy Balfour: Shalom Festival is a chance for Scots to show they support the path to peace

Featured image: CC BY Pedro Ribeiro Simooes; Sydney CC BY-NC-ND Geee Kay;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-08022017-iran-temple-mount/
MKs Seek Probe of Iranian Ties to Temple Mount Crisis
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Looks like there are some Iranian fingerprints on the recent Temple Mount violence. MKs are demanding an investigation

Picking up on Arab media reports, Israel HaYom writes:

According to the Palestinian sources, tens of thousands of Muslim protesters received prepackaged meals along with notes in each one citing a famous quote attributed to 1979 Iranian Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “With the help of Allah, Palestine will be liberated! Jerusalem is ours.” The note also depicted the Dome of the Rock and the Palestinian flag.
 
According to reports in the Palestinian media, a nongovernmental organization run by Iranian youth movements was in charge of distributing the meals. Arabic news sites affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps also pointed to Iranian NGOs as being behind the “supply of food to the heroes fighting for the liberation of the besieged Al-Aqsa mosque until victory is achieved over the Zionist occupier.”
 
Despite those reports, a senior official in the Palestinian security forces told Israel Hayom that such a large logistical effort could not have been single-handedly managed and funded by a youth movement.
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem2. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate is under a lot of scrutiny surrounding the sale of some of its extensive properties. Articles listed in chronological order based on Times of Israel time stamps so you can follow the bouncing ball.

– 1,500 Jerusalem homeowners up in arms over secret sale of church land
– Palestinians demand Patriarch’s ouster over Jerusalem land sales
– Ancient Roman Amphitheater in Caesarea sold by Greek Orthodox church to mystery foreign buyer
– Greek Orthodox Church sold land near iconic Jaffa clock tower — report
– Church land sales to anonymous buyers set homeowners on edge
– Amid outcry, Church defends its sales of land in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Caesarea
– In landmark ruling, court sides with right-wing Jewish group in Old City church property dispute
– After court loss, church vows fight over Old City hotels will go on

3. The Sunday Times of London fired Kevin Myers, the Irish journalist who penned an anti-Semitic, misogynistic article published (and then removed) from the British paper. The paper is also investigating how the column came to be published in the first place.

Seth Frantzman and Joshua Zitser uncover plenty of skeletons of Holocaust denial and misogyny in Myers’ closet that were well known to Myers’ editors.

4. Tisha B’Av: Yes, Jews Were Here First: Tisha B’Av and Zionism are two sides of the same coin — ancient dispersal and modern return, tragedy and renewal, longing and home.

Israel and the Palestinians
• It’s too early to say what this means for Jared Kushner’s Mideast efforts, but the President’s son in law was recorded telling White House interns the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “isn’t solvable.” You can read the transcript or listen to the recording at Wired and draw your own conclusions:

So, what do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know … I’m sure everyone that’s tried this has been unique in some ways, but again we’re trying to follow very logically. We’re thinking about what the right end state is, and we’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there’s a solution. And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on.
Jared Kushner

• Police arrest 33 suspected of instigating Temple Mount riots.
• In record, over 1,300 Jews visited the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av to commemorate the destroyed Temples.

• Israel planted spying devices at Al-Aqsa, ex-mufti claims in new libel

• A Times of Israel Persian blogger faces deportation from Turkey, fears being sent back to Iran, where she would likely be executed. An online petition launched by UNWatch fills in some more details, while Israel HaYom explains that Neda Amin fled Iran in 2014 over a book she wrote on womens’ oppression.

“People who said they work for the Turkish intelligence organization called me on the phone five or six times one-and-a-half years ago. Then they interrogated me at a foreigners’ branch directorate. They kept asking me why I wrote for an Israeli newspaper and with whom I have connections in Israel. Although I repeatedly said I am only a journalist, they accused me of being a spy for Israel,” she was quoted as saying by Israel National News.

• Mahmoud Abbas launched talks with Hamas. Negotiations are reportedly focused on Hamas “dismantling its governing structures in Gaza” and publicly scrapping its arrangement with Abbas rival Mohammed Dahlan, while the PA would “restore electricity supplies and allow Gazan banks to trade in foreign currency again.”

• Senior Hamas officials meet with Iranian official in Beirut. More on the story at Ynet and Times of Israel coverage.

Saeb Erekat

• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is seeking a lung transplant in Israel or the US. Ynet explains:

Erekat’s temporary replacement has been announced as Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj.
 
Erekat, 62, suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, which is characterized by the development of scars in lung tissue which makes it difficult for them to function properly. The disease manifests itself in shortness of breath, coughing and loss of the ability of the lungs to transfer oxygen to the body. He was diagnosed more than a year ago.
• Palestinian fires pistol in Jenin hospital, demanding care in Israel. Times of Israel coverage.

• The PA and Morocco are pressuring African leaders to boycott a summit of African and Israeli leaders due to held in Togo at the end of October. According to the Jerusalem Post, disproportionate media interest in Israel is exactly what Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé is counting on:

Gnassingbé is intent on holding the meeting regardless of any political risk involved, the official said. One of the main reasons is that it will add to his and Togo’s prestige.
 
“If you hold an Africa-Africa summit, nobody cares, including the international media,” the official said. “Nobody will write or publish anything because you have some kind of African summit almost every day. But if you do something with Israel, you will get some kind of coverage – either positive or negative – because Israel is involved. Since the summit is taking place in Togo, people will talk about the president and his country, and they will see him as an actor on the international stage.”
 
The source said that the media coverage expected from the summit is almost as important for Togo as the summit itself. The added value, he said, is there is also good chance that some of the more than 130 Israeli companies that will be present at the summit will chose to do business in the country.
• Might this have something to do with Amnesty’s Israeli tax exempt status, which is now under threat?

TOI

• In Hebron, troops arrest parents who stashed bullets in kids’ rooms.

• There’s no doubt that Yosef, Chaya and Elad Salomon were murdered in their Halamish home by a Palestinian terrorist. And it’s well-documented that their murderer, Omar el-Abed posted on Facebook his plans to kill Jews. So why on earth does CBC News hedge, qualifying this basic information as “according to Israeli authorities.”

Four Palestinians died in clashes with the Israeli security forces, while three members of an Israeli family were, according to Israeli authorities, stabbed to death by an attacker who wrote on Facebook he was acting to protect the al-Aqsa mosque.
Strange, but the CBC ran with AP coverage of the attack. (The unholy headline might be deja vu.)

• A Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli in a supermarket in the central Israeli town of Yavne. According to Ynet, the attacker a 19-year-old employee of the supermarket was apprehended by civilians. The attack was caught on security video.

• Palestinian man confesses to murdering pregnant Israeli girlfriend

Around the World
• A group of students at Fordham U. are suing the New York school over its refusal to allow Students for Justice in Palestine to register as a club. Dean of Students Keith Eldredge overturned a decision by the student government allowing SJP.

• North Carolina governor signs anti-BDS legislation.

• Munich is due to become the first German city to pass legislation banning BDS and labeling it as anti-Semitic.

• Israeli theater group heads back to Edinburgh three years after being evicted by protesters.

• An Austrian court sentenced a Hamas operative to life in prison “for conspiring and inciting others to carry out terror attacks in Jerusalem.”

Commentary/Analysis
NY Times• Over at the New York Times, Nathan Thrall and Robert Blecher hope to head off war in Gaza by cementing its separation from the West Bank. Is a three-state solution only politically incorrect when suggested by Israelis? And would it really make it easier for Israel to negotiate peace with the Palestinians?

First, Israel — which refuses to engage with any Hamas-led government — could transfer tax revenues on Gaza-bound goods to the people of Gaza, either through an internationally supervised trust or by using the tax revenues to pay for increased electricity. Second, Egypt could export more goods to Gaza, thereby reducing the amount taxed by Israel and increasing the amount taxed directly by Gaza’s government. Third, Hamas could allow the formation of a new administrative body in Gaza, led by a non-Hamas figure, in which case Israel and the international community could engage with it directly to improve life in Gaza and establish a long-term cease-fire.
• Some people support or excuse anti-Semitism due to Israel’s policies because they want to use anti-Semitism to motivate opposition to Israel’s policies, argues Seth Frantzman.

• Plenty of Temple Mount commentary:

– Smadar Perry: Jordanians waiting for Netanyahu to apologize
– Mordechai Kedar: Israel vs. Jordan: Why Israel needs to be tougher
– Bassam Tawil: “The battle over Jerusalem has just begun”
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: The Temple Mount’s perilous situation

quill

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Casey Babb: Canadian tax dollars shouldn’t subsidize Palestinian terrorists
– Dr. Moshe Elad: The day after Abbas
– Caroline Overington: Israel losing the public relations war against Palestinians
– Elliott Abrams: The next Israel-Hezbollah conflict
– Mark Dubowitz and Mike Gallagher: Averting a third Lebanon war (click via Twitter)
– Miriam Elman: Boycotters, if the goal of your visits is to harm Israel, stay home.
– Amb. Alan Baker: The Jews: One of the world’s oldest indigenous peoples
– Sara Yael Hirschhorn: Israel doesn’t cause anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites do
– Daniel Sugarman: It’s not just extremists who believe anti-Semitic trope that Jews are good with money
– Mark Thomas: Unending conflict wipes future away for Israelis, Palestinians
– A. Z. Mohamed: The State Department’s report on terrorism should be discredite

Featured image: CC BY Thomas Leuthard; fingerprint Pixabay; Kushner CC BY Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Erekat via YouTube/Al Jazeera English; quill CC0 Pixabay/Ashreila;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07302017-abbas-health/
Questions Raised About Abbas’ Health
Israel Daily News Stream9 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Mahmoud Abbas was discharged from a Ramallah hospital with a clean bill of health after undergoing what Palestinian media called “routine medical checks.” But Haaretz reports that Israeli officials are concerned the 82-year-old PA president’s health is declining:

Israeli and Palestinian sources believe that Abbas’ health has deteriorated in recent months and that any further worsening could hasten the changing of the guard at the Palestinian Authority. Abbas’ inner circle is interested in minimizing the severity of his medical problems.
Meanwhile, Seth Frantzman lays out five post-Abbas possibilities.

Mahmoud Abbas

2. An IDF military court upheld the conviction and 18-month jail sentence of Hebron shooter, Elor Azaria. Judges said Azaria’s version of events wasn’t credible, but also denied an appeal from prosecutors seeking a stiffer sentence. Take your pick of Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Ynet, Times of Israel and Israel HaYom coverage.

In a case which divided Israel, Azaria was caught on film shooting and killing an incapacitated Palestinian who attacked soldiers in Hebron.

3. Though security was tight and tension was taught, Friday prayers at the Temple Mount passed without violence. Calm remained on the holy site on Sunday.

Palestinians saw the Temple Mount showdown as a rare grassroots victory while Israelis criticized what they called Netanyahu’s “capitulation.”

4. Podcast Interview With Journalist Hunter Stuart: Julie Hazan, HonestReporting’s US Director and Shahar Azani, Executive Director StandWithUs in New York, discussed with US journalist Hunter Stuart how his perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shifted as a result of his firsthand experience working as a journalist in the region. Also discussed were Stuart’s hopes for the future of the news media, and his views on global politics.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly suggested to US envoys a possible land swap with the Palestinians, according to Israeli media:

Netanyahu reportedly suggested that jurisdiction of several Israeli Arab villages in the Wadi Ara region could be transferred to Palestinian control in exchange for Israel annexing Jewish settlements in the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank . . .
 
The TV report did not specify when the proposal was raised or when Israel sought the exchange to take place. The television report said there was no confirmation of the report from the prime minister or the US administration.
• The IDF raided the Ramallah-based headquarters of PalMedia on suspicion of inciting terror in its broadcasts. Equipment and documents were seized, according to Israeli media reports.

UNRWA• An effort by Palestinian supporters to quietly force the US to fund the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was short circuited after being exposed by journalist Benny Avni.

The resolution was due to be adopted on Friday but was postponed, according to UNRWA lobbyist Matthias Schmale. Avni wrote (before the postponement)

The resolution, sponsored by a large group of countries sympathetic to the Palestinians, will recommend “a gradual increase in the support provided to [UNRWA] from the regular budget of the UN” by next year. Plus, mandatory fees in the past could only fund the salaries of non-Palestinian workers; the new resolution removes that restriction as well.
 
Camel nose, meet tent. Eventually the entirety of America’s contribution to UNRWA will be decided by UN members rather than Congress.
• Israel is targeting Amnesty International over the organization’s latest anti-settlements campaign, reports Israel HaYom:

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is exploring the possibility of denying tax benefits to individuals or organizations that donate funds to Amnesty International due to a recent campaign launched by the human rights group against Israel’s settlements.
 
The human rights group’s “50 Years of Occupation” campaign calls on the international community to boycott Israeli products manufactured in Judea and Samaria, as well as impose an arms embargo on Israel, claiming that the Jewish state’s settlement enterprise constitutes a war crime.

• Ynet: Israel builds pipeline to absorb sewage from Gaza due to Strip’s power shortages.

• Worth reading: Tales From Inside an Israeli ER.

Mideast Matters
• US officials to CNN: Iranian-backed group fired a missile deep into Saudi Arabia. Do Houthis have Scuds now?

The missile, described by one official as a Scud, was fired from Houthi controlled territory near Sa’Dah in northern Yemen and flew some 930 kilometers before landing near the western coast of Saudi Arabia.
 
It is assessed that the target was a Saudi oil facility near the port city of Yanbu.
• Turkish reporter admits he made up a Jared Kushner quote praising Erdogan.

Around the World
• Haaretz: SlutWalk Chicago to allow Zionist symbols after all.

“I do think that at SlutWalk Chicago we have some apologizing to do around the confusion with some of our tweets.”
Feltz and Winkleman
Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman

• The Sunday Times of London apologized and removed an anti-Semitic article targeting female BBC hosts.

Readers called for columnist Kevin Myers to be sacked, after he suggested BBC presenters Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz earned high salaries because they were Jewish.
 
The piece, titled “Sorry, ladies – equal pay has to be earned”, appeared in the Irish edition of the newspaper.
• California imam apologizes for anti-Semitic sermon — but another fiery sermon surfaces

• Delegates to Australian Labor Party conferences in New South Wales and Queensland are expected to throw their support behind a resolution that “urges the next Labor government to recognise Palestine.” The initiative is being led by former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr.
• Two New Jersey men responsible for a string of attacks on synagogues were sentenced to 35 years.

The two were convicted last year of spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in Maywood and Hackensack, attempting to burn down synagogues in Paramus and Rutherford and throwing Molotov cocktails into the Rutherford home of a rabbi from December 2011 to January 2012.
Commentary/Analysis
• My eyes are glowing in the dark after reading all these Temple Mount commentaries.

– Spengler: Arab humiliation and the Temple Mount
– Khadija Khan: Palestinians: The metal detector scam
– Bassam Tawil: Metal detectors or lie detectors — who is violating what?
– Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi: Temple Mount crisis proves violence pays
– David Weinberg: Israel must disabuse Abbas of the notion he can bully Israel
– Dr. Reuven Berko: A pyrrhic victory
– Zvi Bar’el: Arab states fear that a Palestinian uprising would spark another Arab Spring
– Ben-Dror Yemini: The ‘Al-Aqsa libel’ lives on
– Raphael Ahren: After Temple Mount surrender, PM seeks to divert attention by sliding right
– Stephen Pollard: Israel and Palestine are just a few rash moves away from a Third Intifada

Temple Mount

– Norman Bailey: Making mountains out of molehills
– Orly Azoulay: Trump’s Mideast peace deal is fading away
– Liel Leibovitz: Was Iran behind the recent Temple Mount violence?
– David Harris: Stop infantilizing the Palestinians
– Selin Nasi: The Turkish-Israeli rift over the Haram al-Sharif
– Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll: Our past is being denied to us
– Alex Ryvchin: The price of historical vandalism
– Jonathan Tobin: Team Trump’s quiet Mideast success
– New York Daily News (staff-ed): Outrage over Temple Mount in Israel encapsulates cycles of Palestinian terrorism

• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend.

– Eugene Kontorovich: Israel anti-boycott bill does not violate free speech
– Charles Bybelezer: Back in the MidEast: Has the Russian bear returned for good?
– New York Post (staff-ed): Palestinian Authority now uses half of all foreign aid to reward terror

Featured image: CC BY-SA Tom Woodward Abbas CC BY-NC-ND UN Geneva; Feltz via YouTube/dating nake; Winkleman via YouTube/BBC News; Temple Mount CC BY-NC-ND RV1864
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

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Authors
Pesach BensonPesach Benson
Tags
Amnesty International, Bob Carr, Elor Azaria, Hebron shooting, Houthis, Hunter Stuart, Iran, Julie Hazan, land swap, Mahmoud Abbas, Slutwalk Chicago, Temple Mount, UNRWA, Yemen

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07272017-temple-mount/
Palestinians Return to Temple Mount
Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinians returned to the Temple Mount and police confirmed that all cameras installed after the murder of two policemen on July 14 were removed. But police officials told Israeli media they’ll be on high alert during Friday prayers tomorrow:

Police Commander of the Jerusalem District Maj.-Gen. Yoram Halevi said on Thursday morning that he expects many Muslim worshipers to attend prayers at the al-Aksa mosque on Friday, and that he expects attempts to harm police personnel and civilians.
 
“Do not test us tomorrow, and no one should be surprised if there are injuries on the other side,” he said in a stark message to the Palestinians. “I call on the leadership of the other side act to calm the atmosphere, and again not to test us tomorrow.”
More at the Times of Israel.

Dome of the Rock
The Temple Mount as seen from the Mount of Olives

2. Accusing Al Jazeera of inciting Temple Mount violence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to shut down the Qatari network’s Jerusalem office. Reuters picked up on the Prime Minister’s statement on Facebook (in Hebrew).

3. Digging in its heels, the US State Department defended a controversial terrorism report asserting that Israeli settlements and lack of hope drive Palestinian attacks.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Reuters: Saudi Arabia says King Salman’s contact with the US helped ease Temple Mount tensions. I wonder if reports like this irritate the Jordanian monarchy, which is the formal custodian of the Temple Mount.

• Jordan is reportedly refusing to allow Israeli Ambassador Einat Schlein and her staff return to Amman without official guarantees that an Israeli security guard who shot two people will be put on trial. Haaretz picked up on Jordanian media coverage which — as far as I’m aware — has not been officially confirmed by the government.

• President Donald Trump’s tweets against transgender people serving in the US military drew the Los Angeles Times‘ attention to the IDF, which allows them to serve.

“It makes us strong that we don’t waste time on questions like this,” said Stern, the former commander of the Israel Defense Forces Manpower Command. “It’s something to be proud of.”
Around the World
• After meeting with French Jewish leaders, French Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet won’t intervene in the trial of Sarah Halimi’s killer.

Although witnesses reportedly heard the suspect, Kobili Traore shouting “Allah akbar” and reciting Koranic passages as the 64-year-old woman was tortured and thrown to her death from a third floor balcony, prosecutors refuse to label the murder as a hate crime.

Nicole Belloubet
French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet

• A UK anti-Semitism watchdog “recorded 767 anti-Semitic attacks in the first half of 2017 — the highest figure recorded within six months since monitoring began in 1984.” The JTA picked up on a study by Britain’s Community Security Trust.

• 26 Venezuelan Jews fleeing ongoing riots, violence and food shortages arrived in Israel.

Commentary/Analysis
Bild• Julian Reichelt, the editor of Bild — Germany’s largest newspaper — penned a withering criticism of German media’s coverage of the Temple Mount crisis. The Jerusalem Post picked up on Reichelt’s commentary (in the original German here).

“No other country, which suffers under permanent terror, is reported on in Germany in the cynical, ice-cold and heartless manner like Israel is,” wrote Julian Reichelt. His commentary was at one point the second most read article on the popular website.
• Over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern takes apart the anti-Semitism of the Chicago Dyke March and the Chicago SlutWalk.

It has long been obvious that left-wing anti-Semitism is a problem and that an overwhelming abhorrence of Israel often blurs into a generalized anger toward Jews. Organizers of both the Dyke March and the SlutWalk have not discovered the praxis of intersectionality; they have merely dressed up their bigotry in updated argot. Their anti-Semitism is not academic or novel but almost depressingly familiar, and we do not need to overhaul the progressive worldview to address it. We need only remind ourselves that anyone who would hold Jews to a different, higher standard is anti-Semitic, full stop. Whether it happens at a far-left march or an alt-right convention, the creation of special rules for Jews is irrational and wrong. By creating a stringent litmus test for openly Jewish demonstrators, the Dyke March and SlutWalk did not protect the oppressed. They became the oppressors.

Aw friends- the Star of David reps all Jews- 2ban it is like banning the American flag bc u hate trump – misplaced https://t.co/k1ypOQnmwT
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) July 26, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Ron Ben-Yishai: Erdogan, Haniyeh and Abbas are praying for an intifada
– Daniel Shapiro: Jordan walks a tightrope in Jerusalem
– Dov Lieber: At the Temple Mount, it’s not about metal detectors, it’s about sovereignty
– David Suissa: Arab hate for Jews is what’s holding them back
– New York Post (staff-ed) Turkish tyrant’s Temple Mount hypocrisy
– Clifford May: Qatar’s ‘press poodle’

Featured image: CC BY Jon S; Temple Mount CC BY-ND Derek Winterburn Belloubet via YouTube/Public Senat;

Israel-Jordan Ties in Crisis After Embassy Attack
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago
http://honestreporting.com/idns-07242017-embassy-crisis/
Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli-Jordanian relations are in crisis after a Palestinian worker moving furniture stabbed a guard at the Israeli embassy in Amman with a screwdriver.

The Israeli security guard shot the 17-year-old assailant, while the building’s landlord was hit by a stray bullet. Both succumbed to their wounds. Jordan wants to question the guard and is refusing to let him leave the country. But Israel’s refusing. The Jerusalem Post explains the unfolding standoff:

The Jordanians have refused to let the guard be transferred back to Israel. The Foreign Ministry said that according to the Vienna Convention that covers diplomatic relations, the guard has immunity from investigation and arrest. He, and the rest of the delegation, are currently locked down in the compound, and Israel is not letting the Jordanians investigate the guard.
According to Ynet, “The Foreign Ministry believes the incident to be a terrorist attack related to the events surrounding the Temple Mount.” More on the unfolding developments at Haaretz and the Times of Israel.

This Times of London headline is inexplicable:
Times of London
2. Call it an “Al-AqsaFail.” A Palestinian stabbed an Arab-Israeli in Petach Tikva this afternoon. The terrorist reportedly told police he did it “for Al-Aqsa.” The victim, a bus driver from the Israeli Arab town of Arara was hospitalized in moderate-severe condition. More at the Times of Israel.

3. PA money budgeted for terror stipends has increased in 2017.

According to the PA budget, salaries to incarcerated and released terrorists will amount in 2017 to 552 million shekels ($153.4 million), a rise of 13 percent over the original budget of 2016 and 11 percent more than the actual expenditure in 2016 (revised budget). The money will be transferred to the Palestinian National Fund, the financial arm of the PLO, which was designated by Israel as a terror organization due to its involvement in paying terrorist salaries.
4. Watch HR’s Daniel Pomerantz discuss coverage of the Temple Mount and Neve Tzuf massacre with i24 News.


Israel and the Palestinians
• White House envoy Jason Greenblatt is returning to the Mideast to calm the Temple Mount tensions.

• Palestinians continued clashing with police by Lion’s Gate overnight.

• Australian ABC News readers will be forgiven for thinking that nasty Israelis triggered the Temple Mount crisis by installing metal detectors and security cameras. There’s no mention that they were installed after a deadly terror in which two police officers were killed by Israeli Arabs who had smuggled guns onto the Temple Mount. ABC News did report this at the time . . .

• After a Gaza rocket was fired at Israel, the IDF responded with tank fire on two Hamas positions. The Palestinian rocket landed in an open area causing no damage or harm. Ynet coverage.

• In an interview with the Associated Press, ex-Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan discussed his new relationship with Hamas, the electricity deal he brokered with Egypt, and whether he is cementing Palestinian divisions between Gaza and the West Bank.
Mohammed Dahlan

• The Washington Post takes a closer look at the murder of Sarah Halimi and why the French Jewish community is up in arms over a prosecutor’s decision not to label it as an act of terror or anti-Semitism.

The decision sent shock waves through the French Jewish community, Europe’s largest. For many, it evinces a political calculus that weighs certain attacks over others.
Commentary/Analysis
• ISIS destroyed Jonah’s Tomb, but not its message.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Amos Harel: Israel and Jordan want to resolve the embassy crisis, but the Jordanian public complicates matters
– Avi Issacharoff: With embassy attack, Jordan’s ties with Israel go from rancid to toxic
– Mohammed Kaabiya: Death in Jerusalem is a price not worth paying for holy site
– Liel Leibovitz: Abbas pay-for-slay program claims three members of a family celebrating birth of a child
– Nahum Barnea: Halamish attack: The writing was all over the wall
– Haim Fogel: Joined by tragedy

– Dr. Reuven Berko: Staring contest on Temple Mount
– Daniel Kurtzer: The hard part on Mideast peace
– Alex Fishman: Israel looking for a way out of crisis without compromising pride
– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: Hamas’ irrational rationale
– Yoseif Bloch: How do you say ‘terror’?
– Simon Rocker: Are Jews an ethnic minority? The BBC doesn’t think so
Featured image: CC BY-SA Karsten Seiferlin; Dahlan via YouTube/mohammed dahlan;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07232017-israeli-funeral/
Israeli Terror Victims Laid to Rest
Israel Daily News Stream6 hours ago

Zaka personnel and police inside the home where three Israelis were murdered and one seriously injured by a Palestinian terrorist, in a stabbing attack, in the settlement of Halamish, West Bank. July 22, 2017. Photo by Hadas Parush/FLASH90
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Today’s Top Stories
1. Three Israelis were stabbed to death after a Palestinian terrorist entered their home and began attacking family members at a traditional Friday night Shabbat meal. The Palestinian entered the Neve Tzuf settlement (also known as Halamish) by simply climbing a fence.

The funerals of Yosef Salomon, 70, his daughter, Chaya, 46, and son Elad, 36, were getting underway at the Modiin Cemetery as this roundup was published. The family had gathered to celebrate the birth of a grandson.

Before carrying out the attack, Omar al-Abed, of the West Bank village of Kobar, posted a final statement on Facebook.

“All that I have is a sharpened knife, and it is answering the call of al-Aksa. Shame on you, you who preach hatred. God will take revenge on you and will make it count. All of us are the sons of Palestine and the sons of al-Aksa. You, sons of monkeys and pigs, if you do not open the gates of al-Aksa, I am sure that men will follow me and will hit you with an iron fist, I am warning you.”
Earlier this year, Abed spent two weeks in PA detention about “alleged plans to attack Israelis” before being released.

Elad’s widow, Michal, recounted the attack, describing to reporters how she quickly rushed the children upstairs and called the police.
Yosef Salomon, daughter Chaya and son Elad

2. PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced he was suspending all contacts with Israel until the metal detectors were removed. He later confirmed this included security coordination.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman shrugged off the announcement, “saying the security ties are mostly beneficial for the Palestinians anyway.” More Temple Mount developments below.

Meanwhile, Palestinians protesting new security measures at the Temple Mount clashed with Israeli security forces in eastern Jerusalem over the weekend. Israeli police released security footage showing how the the guns used in the terror attack which killed two police officers were smuggled onto the Temple Mount earlier in the morning.

3. According to Israeli media reports confirmed by Ramallah, Israel and Jordan will create a Temple Mount security committee that excludes the Palestinian Authority.

4. Temple Mount Tensions: Unholy Headline Fails: Headlines equate Israeli terror victims with rioting Palestinians.

5. Video: Temple Mount: What’s the point in praying if you can’t bring your gun? After the latest violence, HonestReporting breaks down the facts and the media failures.



Israel and the Palestinians
• The UN Security Council is expected to meet on Monday to discuss the Jerusalem violence.

• Israeli officials accused the Islamic Wakf and the PA of inciting Palestinians to murder while also calling UNESCO a “full partner” in stoking the latest tensions.

• According to Haaretz, Israeli police are restricting journalists access to the area around the entrance of Lions Gate, where there is an adjacent entrance to the Temple Mount. This was where HonestReporting’s Simon Plosker recently observed Palestinians and reporters (From the Scene: Temple Mount Troubles).

The police asserted that permitting journalists into the area caused a tumult and a lack of security. The journalists were ordered to move to Mota Gur Way, a few hundred meters from the Old City Walls, and about 500 meters from the Temple Mount entrance. Civilians who are not journalists have full access to this area.
Jerusalem Old City

• The Times of Israel takes the pulse of eastern Jerusalem.

“Just remove the metal detectors. They are nonsense,” he urged. “We are going up the tree together and we don’t know who will come down.”
• Muslims around the world demonstrated against Israel. In Istanbul, the JTA reports protesters gathered outside the city’s Neve Shalom synagogue, tried to kick the doors down and throw things inside.

This will rattle a lot of Turkish Jews. In 1986, Palestinians believed to be affiliated with the Abu Nidal terror group killed 22 worshipers in a terror attack. In 2003, four simultaneous truck bombs killed 57 people, including seven at Neve Shalom. Turkish police believe they were carried out by Al-Qaida.

#Istanbul Neve Shalom Synagogue has been attacked in reaction to Israeli applications at al-Aqsa Mosque entrance. pic.twitter.com/Dz8QwC3jje
— dokuz8 NEWS (@dokuz8_EN) July 21, 2017
• Worth reading: Amid Temple Mount tumult, the who, what and why of its Waqf rulers.

• 25 West Bank Hamasniks arrested in Israeli raids overnight.

• One report in The Independent surprisingly opt to drop all context whatsoever. You wouldn’t know from the Indy that Israel installed metal detectors at the Temple Mount because of a terror attack which killed two police officers. Nor is there any understanding offered of why Palestinians oppose the new security measures.

• Jerusalem Post: Israel to deny to radical hard-core BDS activists who are expected to arrive in the near future.

• The Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) profiled Maj. Gen. Yoram Halevy, commander of the Israeli Police’s Jerusalem district — before the Israeli Arab terror attack that sparked the latest violence.

• At the risk of ruining the mood Sarah Helm and The Observer try to create, I have to point out that the Israeli blockade of Gaza is because of Hamas arms smuggling by sea (see examples one, two and three, to name a few). Adding further insult is a reference to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital. Find out why I call that “lousy synecdoche.”

In a disturbing new twist, the offensive bringing misery to the two million people who live here, most of them refugees, has been triggered by the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, in collaboration with Israel.
 
A blockade, military and economic, imposed by land, air and sea, was first imposed by Israel 11 years ago to isolate and weaken Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement that took power in Gaza, but not in the West Bank, after winning elections . . .
 
Across the wasteland is a huge cement wall, a newly constructed section of Israel’s barrier, which Tel Aviv says is necessary to prevent rocket attacks on towns inside Israel.
Israeli Navy
An Israeli Navy ship off the coast of Gaza in 2014

Around the World
• After last month’s Dyke March scandal, SlutWalk Chicago is banning ‘Zionist displays’ from its upcoming August rally. Background and links at The Algemeiner. Once again, “intersectionality” doesn’t include Jews.

all participants will be well protected, so ppl making Zionist or any other similarly nationalist, imperialist displays will be ejected ?
— SlutWalk Chicago (@slutwalkchi) July 17, 2017
• Two Scottish Palestine activists convicted over Israeli store protest.

• Vandals toppled 60 headstones in three Hartford Jewish cemeteries.

• Public editors are disappearing, thanks to shrinking newsroom budgets and — believe it or not — public distrust. The Columbia Journalism Review talked to ombudsmen to find out why and what it means.

Commentary/Analysis
• Memo to Daniel Nerenberg: It’s bad enough that you play up fringe Jewish groups that want to rebuild the Jewish Temple, as if they’re mainstream. But how can you not consider that smuggling guns onto the Temple Mount and then attacking from the holy site Israeli policemen changed the status quo?

Dome of the Rock

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Emily Amrousi: A home, not a battlefield
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Explosive chain of events could lead to new wave of terrorism
– Bassam Tawil: Metal detectors and Palestinian lies
– Raphael Ahren: As Temple Mount tensions persist, where’s Donald Trump?
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Abbas is out of the game
– Liel Leibovitz: The Palestinian mountain of hate
– Avi Issacharoff: Israeli leaders can still contain Temple Mount crisis, but require political courage
– Seth Frantzman: Mass protests over Temple Mount carve out unique civil disobedience
– Zvi Bar’el: Arab states conspicuously silent on Temple Mount crisis

Featured image: Hadas Parush/FLASH90; map via CC BY SA Wikimedia Commons; Navy CC BY-SA Israel Defense Forces; Dome of the Rock CC BY Tee Cee;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07202017-israel-braces/ 
IDF Gears Up for Friday Clashes Over Temple Mount
Israel Daily News Stream18 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Expecting clashes to spread to the West Bank on Friday, the IDF’s gearing up. Meanwhile, police are considering closing off the holy site tomorrow. Jerusalem mosques will be closed as worshipers head to the Temple Mount. Israeli Arabs from across the country are also expected to arrive for tomorrow’s prayers.

Yesterday, HonestReporting visited the Lions Gate for a first-hand look at the standoff over the holy site. See From the Scene: Temple Mount Troubles.

Lions Gate
Muslim worshippers perform their noon prayers the Lion’s Gate, outside the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City. Metal detectors were placed at gates to the Temple Mount, and the Muslim worshippers refused to pass through them. The Temple Mount was reopened following last weeks terror attack when two Israeli Arabs opened fire and killed two Israeli police men. July 19, 2017. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

2. Israeli judges allowed a group of Palestinian citizens to take legal action in Israeli courts against the PA for torture. The plaintiffs had been tortured by the PA between 1990-2003 amid accusations of collaborating with Israel. The Jerusalem Post explains:

It is one of the most bizarre in years, as it involves Palestinian Authority citizens coming before the courts of the Israeli “occupation” to get justice for their mistreatment by their own PA law enforcement . . .
 
The case is likely to cause significant diplomatic and legal complications between Israel and the PA, especially about whether and how the authority would be paying damages.
See also Times of Israel coverage.


3. The IDF disclosed Operation Good Neighbor, an endeavor in which Israel has provided more humanitarian aid to Syrians than previously thought. We’re even talking about field hospitals inside Syria since the launch of the aid project in June 2016. More at the Times of Israel, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post and the Israel Defense Forces. Here’s a by the numbers look:

200,000: Syrians living in villages close to the Israeli border
2: Field hospitals built by Israel in southern Syria
1: New clinic for Syrians built on the Israeli side of the border
80,000: Number of Syrians the clinics are meant to support
3,000: Syrians treated in Israel since 2013
1,000: Syrian children brought to Israel for medical exams
360: tons of food sent
40: tons of flour sent
456,000: liters of gas sent
100: tons of clothes sent
12,000: cases of baby formula sent
600: meters of pipes sent, serving 5,000 people who would otherwise be without water
IDF
An IDF soldier comforting a Syrian child (courtesy IDF)

Israel and the Palestinians
• According to the Times of Israel, US officials suggested this compromise on Temple Mount security for Israel and Arab officials to consider:

According to both Palestinian and Israeli sources, the standing metal detector gates will be cleared from the holy site as demanded by Jordanian and Palestinian clerics. Instead, police will use hand-held metal detector wands (similar to those employed by security guards at Israeli malls), but only on those deemed to be suspicious.
 
The selective examinations would be similar to the profiling conducted by security at Ben Gurion Airport, sources said.
• To put the Temple Mount controversy into perspective, the Jerusalem Post examines how security is handled at other holy sites around the world, including Mecca, the Vatican, India and Japan.

• Vice News looks at the issue of Gazans collaborating with Israel, talking to an accused collaborator, their families, Hamas and a retired Israeli officer who ran collaborators for the IDF.

• A Palestinian was shot and killed while trying to stab Israeli soldiers near the West Bank settlement of Tekoa this afternoon. Jerusalem Post coverage.

• Tunisia bans Wonder Woman over Israeli star.

• The Jerusalem Post takes a closer look at the complexities of Bulgaria’s Hezbollah terror trial. In 2012, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas, killing five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver while injuring 32 Israelis. Thanks to the sheer number of witnesses and victims, numerous changes in the Bulgarian government and the emotional state of the families, the wheels of justice grind slowly.

According to reports in the Bulgarian press, the court may convene soon to hear Israeli witness testimonies at its Tel Aviv embassy as part of an effort to expedite the proceedings.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Liel Leibovitz: How to start a holy war
– Avi Issacharoff: On Temple Mount, will reason trump politics?
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Flouting the status quo
– Melanie Phillips: The day of deranged inversion
– Yoaz Hendel: It’s time to seize opportunities at the Temple Mount
– Shmuel Rosner: Why Israel can’t support a cease-fire in Syria

Featured image: CC BY Robert Couse-Baker;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07192017-wakf-escalates/
Islamic Wakf Threatens Temple Mount Escalation
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. The Temple Mount standoff continued today with clashes near the entrances to Jerusalem’s Old City. The Islamic Wakf, which administers the Temple Mount, announced that all mosques in Jerusalem will be closed on Friday and that worshipers will converge on the Temple Mount.

Meanwhile, the PA appealed to the international community to force Israel to remove metal detectors placed at the holy site following last week’s terror attack.

HR’s Simon Plosker went to the Lions Gate to see what was going on today, sharing his impressions on Facebook.

2. In a closed door meeting with several European leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made some blunt statements, not realizing that a microphone he was wearing was still live, allowing journalists in the next room to hear everything through their ear pieces, Haaretz reported.

Among the more noteworthy hot mic revelations was an admission that Israel has conducted air strikes on Hezbollah arms convoys in Syria “dozens of times,” that Israel has ties with Arab countries interested in Israeli technology, and the PM’s sharp criticism of European Union conditions for advancing bilateral ties.


3. To the ire of Israel, Irish President Michael Higgins recently met BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, the Times of Israel reports.

This comes several days after Netanyahu chided Ireland’s Foreign Minister earlier this month over Dublin’s support for non-governmental organizations that call for Israel’s destruction.


Israel and the Palestinians
• Reuters visited Gaza to get a first-hand look at how Gaza health care is suffering as a result of feuding between Hamas and the PA. Without downplaying the suffering, I was particularly struck that the wire service visited a hospital named after Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of the co-founders of Hamas and pediatrician by trade.

I once wrote about Blaming Israel for HamasCare, pointing out:

The Rantisi name represents everything warped about Palestinian health care. It doesn’t take a surgeon general’s warning to know that suicide bombings are bad for your health, but Dr. Rantisi dispatched them by the dozens. And The Guardian’s own Rantisi obituary noted that he condoned killing Israeli children.
• Bungled photo caption of the day, courtesy the Times of London. There are no more restrictions on Palestinians visiting the Temple Mount than the airport metal detector that “restricts” you from boarding your plane. You can compare it with the original AFP/Getty caption.

Times of London caption

Around the World
• Newsday: New York officials want to cancel a pair of upcoming Roger Waters concerts due to take place in the Nassau Coliseum, saying the show violates anti-BDS legislation passed by Nassau County lawmakers earlier this year.

• Australian Jewish activists blasted the University of Sydney, whose Dept. of Peace and Conflict Studies is holding a controversial BDS conference at the end of July. Details at The Australian:

Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission, said it was shameful that the good name of the university had been hijacked and lent to a “blatantly anti-Israel hate-fest”, affording the conference legitimacy and credibility that is “unwarranted”.
• Great moments in fools and their money soon parted:

• Police are investigating two incidents at an Edmonton Jewish school. According to the Edmonton Journal, a recycling bin outside Edmonton’s Talmud Torah School was lit on fire on Saturday nigt, which investigators suspect was deliberately set.

The next day, a security guard found the remains of a burnt garbage bag next to a door, along with scorch marks on the building’s facade. Police are examining footage from the school’s security cameras.

• UK media transparency took on a new meaning today when the BBC released the names of its highest paid employees, revealing a gender pay gap. And how is the BBC covering the UK’s story of the day, being that it is the story?


Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Sara Weissman, editor of New Voices, a web by and for campus Jews, got a JTA soapbox to tell warn the Jewish community, “Forget BDS. It’s anti-normalization you should be worrying about.”

The things-not-to-normalize list includes no-brainers like racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia. It also often includes Zionism.
 
That means pro-Palestinian activism on campus looks different these days – because all activism looks different. Instead of boycotts, a more frequent form of campus organizing is protesting at and disrupting Israel-related events . . .
 
But anti-normalization does mean Jewish students, particularly Zionists, are tackling a whole new host of questions on campus: Do left-leaning Zionists have a place on the campus left? And if only non-Zionist Jewish students find acceptance on the left, is the campus left tokenizing Jewish students, deciding who’s a “good Jew” or a “bad Jew” from outside our community?
 
What does it mean to Jewish students that Zionist speakers are considered indefensible alongside alt-right speakers? Are Zionist students and pro-Palestinian activists defining Zionism the same way? . . .
 
It’s time we see the anti-normalization forest through the BDS trees. Because until we do, we’re missing out on the juicy stuff – the larger debates happening on campus and the real questions Jewish students are asking themselves.

• Plenty of broken reeds and burnt pixels trying to make sense of the Temple Mount situation.

– Eli Lake: Terror at the Temple Mount puts the lie to Palestinian rage
– David Horovitz: On Temple Mount, Israel long since made its fundamental compromise
– Pinhas Inbari: The Palestinians’ Temple Mount dilemma: Oppose Israel or each other?
– Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad: What does Jordan bring?
– Jonathan Tobin: Abbas can’t evade responsibility for Temple Mount unrest

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Nasreen Qadri: Why Radiohead should perform in Israel, writes an Arab playing with the band
– Josh Lipowsky: Designate Hezbollah as a whole as a terrorist entity
– Eldad Beck: French anti-Semitism, then and now

 

Featured image: CC BY Garry Knight;