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http://honestreporting.com/idns-07182017-roger-waters/
Do Roger Waters Concerts Violate NY Anti-BDS Law?
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Do an upcoming pair of Roger Waters concerts violate New York legislation against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement? That’s the question posed by a local lawmaker on Facebook and picked up on by the JTA.

Given the stink Waters raised over Radiohead’s upcoming Tel Aviv show (and Radiohead’s reaction), Waters’ response to the Nassau issue is rich:

The lawmaker, Howard Kopel, asked the county attorney last week to determine whether the Nassau Coliseum lease requires compliance with the county law adopted in May 2016 that prevents the county from doing business with any company that participates in the economic boycott of Israel . . .
 
In a Facebook Live chat Saturday with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Waters said he would play his shows in Nassau, saying an artist’s rights should not be attacked over his stand on an issue.
Roger Waters

2. Gretchen Hammond, the reporter who broke the story of Jewish rainbow flags being banned from a Chicago LGBTQ parade, confirmed on Twitter that she was fired from the Windy City Times for her coverage. The JTA explains:

In a tweet Monday, Gretchen Rachel Hammond wrote to Dyke March’s Twitter account that “You attacked, humiliated and robbed me of a job.” Hammond confirmed to JTA on the same day that she wrote the tweet.
 
Hammond said she could not elaborate on her tweet, citing an agreement with her employer, the Windy City Times.

3. Saudi King Salman reportedly interceded in the deadlock over the Temple Mount by sending a message to Israel via Washington.

According to a Saudi media report cited by Haaretz, the king demanded that the holy site be re-opened to Muslims, to which Netanyahu “vowed that the status quo at the site won’t be harmed, and even invited senior Saudi officials to Al-Aqsa Mosque to examine it for themselves.”

Israel and the Palestinians
• Palestinians rioted overnight in eastern Jerusalem against new Temple Mount security measures, throwing stones and firebombs at security forces. The Times of Israel reports that most of the violence took place in the Silwan and Issawiya neighborhoods, and that at least 50 Palestinians and one officer were reported injured.

Oh yeah, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party also called for a “Day of Rage” on Wednesday.

• Tweet of the day goes to Michele Chabin:

• The first medic to respond to Friday’s Temple Mount terror attack was Muslim. Here’s his story.

• IDF soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian trying to run them over with his car at the entrance of a West Bank village near Hebron this afternoon. Two soldiers were injured.

• PA: The only precondition for peace talks is that Israel announce a commitment to two states.

• Palestinians return Israeli drone after crash in West Bank.

• Ynet takes a closer look at the Islamic State in the Sinai threat to Israel.

• National Public Radio takes a closer look at the Hamas-Fatah power struggle over Gaza.

Mike Pence
Vice President Mike Pence

• The Washington Post takes a closer look at Christian Zionism and Vice President Mike Pence, who reiterated a Trump pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem while giving the keynote address at the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit in Washington. More on that at CNN.
Meanwhile, the JTA reports that CUFI will lobby the US Congress to cut all US funds to the PA over stipends paid to terrorists and their families.

• Israel’s Supreme Court was due to decide today the fate of Dkeika, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the West Bank’s Hebron Hills. The state wants to transfer the 300 people living there to a recognized Bedouin village two kilometers north and demolish the illegally built structures and tents. More at the Jerusalem Post.

Around the World
• Montreal police issued an arrest warrant for Sheikh Muhammad ibn Musa Al Nasr who called for Jews to be killed during a sermon last year. B’nai Brith Canada posted a video of the imam’s key snippets.



• I hope this is a teachable moment in media transparency. The Daily Telegraph reports that BBC newsreaders (US audiences would call them “anchors”) may have to stand down from work on Wednesday, when the taxpayer-funded BBC discloses its top salaries. The Telegraph earlier reported that the disclosures will reveal “a stark gender pay gap.”

News and current affairs presenters are bound by editorial guidelines to remain objective in their coverage, and cannot advance a position on “political or industry controversy or any other controversial subject”.
 
But with the report expected to reveal that the likes of John Humphrys, Fiona Bruce, Kirsty Wark and Laura Kuenssberg are among the 100 or more well-known names earning over £150,000, it is feared that they will be unable to report the subject or conduct interviews with impartiality.
Commentary/Analysis
• Dr. Rami Arav responds after the world’s oldest archaeological journal cancelled a conference in order to boycott Israel.

For Davies, Israel has a regime that violates “Cultural Property.” Moreover, for the sake of discriminating Israelis, Davies divided excavations into two kinds: “Jewish excavations” and all others. While his “Jewish excavations” should be banned from PEQ for being “illegal,” all the others are Kosher.
 
When I queried with him his use of the objectionable term “Jewish excavations” in his editorial, Davies stated in a written reply: “In my defense, I understand that the excavations in question are conducted by Jews and funded by Jews and have a Jewish purpose, so that you might perhaps be gracious enough to allow that I was factually correct.”
Caesarea
• Plenty of commentary on the Temple Mount situation.

– Seth Frantzman: The campaign to exploit Jerusalem terror and fan new violence
– Dr. Gabi Avital: Terrorism shapes reality
– Nahum Barnea: Temple Mount metal detectors won’t help
– Dror Eydar: The real battle for the Temple Mount

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

– Herb Keinon: Why do the Hungarians and Netanyahu want with each other?
– Cnaan Liphshiz: 6 reasons why Macron’s Holocaust speech was groundbreaking
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Abbas wants Hamas on its knees
– Fred Maroun: Arabs who do not love Israel are fools
– James Sorene: Ken Loach’s bullying rhetoric only incites more violence
– David Cohen: An open letter to open letter writers
– Eugene Kontorovichh: Canada corrects its ‘Made in Israel’ policy. It’ time for the US to do the same.
– Dow Marmur: Not enough being doing to halt persecution of Mideast Christians


Featured image: CC BY Shironeko Euro; Waters via YouTube/Roger Waters; Pence via YouTube/ABC News; Caesarea CC BY StateofIsrael;

http://honestreporting.com/07172017-temple-mount/
Temple Mount Standoff Continues, Jews Visit Holy Site
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. While Arabs continued to boycott the Temple Mount over the installation of metal detectors, non-Muslim visitors were allowed back to the holy site for the first time since Friday’s attack. Times of Israel coverage.

2. Over in Paris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel opposes the US-Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement in southern Syria “because it perpetuates the Iranian presence in the country,” Haaretz reported. And ex-National Security Council chief Yaakov Amidror told the Jerusalem Post that Israel may need to take military action to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent presence there. Yesterday, Ynet reported the latest on Iranian plans to lease sea, land and air bases.

Most notably, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism. He also shared Israeli concerns about Hezbollah, and chided Netanyahu over settlements.

Netanyahu is due to arrive in Budapest today, where you can still see swastika-daubed posters of George Soros. They’re still up because of “technical issues.”

3. According to Arab reports picked up by i24 News, Hamas is seeking to disperse its leadership in several countries such as Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon and Malaysia.

Until recently, many Hamas leaders were based in Qatar, but they were expelled amid Qatar’s crisis with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

4. Haaretz Editor: I’m Anti-Zionist and Yes, Israel=Apartheid: Following editor’s Twitter rant, it’s time for Haaretz to acknowledge it is wholly unrepresentative of Israeli society.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Jerusalem Post: Umm el-Fahm residents linked Friday’s fatal Temple Mount terror attack on the belief by many of the town’s residents that “the Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger.”

• The Times of London picked up on a nascent Israeli plan to establish rail links with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. With Turkish trucks unable to transport goods across Syria anymore, a railway connecting Haifa’s port with Jenin, Amman, Riyadh, a Saudi port city on the Persian Gulf, and other destinations would open trade possibilities.

• Worth reading: The Los Angeles Times takes a closer look at Palestinian laborers working illegally in Israel.

• If you feel uninformed about what’s going on in the world around, instead of blaming mass media, a little introspection may be called for in light of this UK survey. Where do you get your news?

Press Gazette

Commentary/Analysis
• Plenty of commentary about the Temple Mount terror and its fallout.

– Mayor Rafik Halabi: It’s time to save our state
– Mohamed Kaabiya: Terrorism is not our way
– Shmuel Rosner: Bullshit detectors at the Temple Mount
– Ben-Dror Yemini: Incitement leads to action
– Avi Issacharoff: Dangerous Muslim theatrics at the Mideast’s most incendiary spot
– Moshe Arens: Allah’s warriors from Umm al-Fahm
– Nadav Shragai: The Waqf’s double-talk

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

– Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas: Shut up or I will arrest you
– Herb Keinon: What Paris peace conference?
– Burak Bekdil: Erdogan’s obsession to take Jerusalem

Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA ERIO;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07132017-water-deal/
Israel, PA Sign Historic Water Deal
Today’s Top Stories
1. White House envoy Jason Greenblatt facilitated a historic Israeli-Palestinian water deal. The agreement on a Red Sea-Dead Sea canal includes sale of 33 million cubic meters of desalinated water to the PA. Details at the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel:

Besides providing a yearly total of 100 million cubic meters of drinking water to Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis, the Red-Dead project will produce “green energy” and replenish the Dead Sea, which is currently shrinking at a drastic pace, Hanegbi said.
Earlier this week, Israel and the PA signed a landmark electricity deal hoping to pave the way for Palestinian energy independence.

2. Canada bans ‘Product of Israel’ labels for wines from the West Bank, Golan, eastern Jerusalem and even Gaza.

In a statement, Bnai Brith Canada said it had information “that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will soon rescind its recent decision.”

Golan wine
3. French Jews are protesting a play about Mohammed Merah, who was responsible for the 2012 Toulouse massacre.

“I Love Death as You Love Life,” which premiered last week at the Festival of Avignon in southern France, details the last three hours in the life of Mohammed Merah, the Islamist who in 2012 murdered a rabbi and two of his sons along with a girl at the school. He also shot dead three French soldiers.
4. HR Success: WashPost Corrects the Record on Israel’s Capital: Once again, big media needed reminding that Tel Aviv is not the capital of Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Out of fuel, Hamas shut down Gaza’s only electricity plant last night. This leaves the Strip with two to four hours of electricity. The Palestinian Authority recently notified Israel it would no longer pay for fuel shipments to the Gaza as Mahmoud Abbas turns the screws on Hamas.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post takes a closer look at the escalating Hamas-Fatah fight over Gaza.

• I agree that Al Jazeera has a problem with anti-Semitism and support for terror. But the United Arab Emirates has never been at the forefront of fighting anti-Semitism, so pardon my smirk . . .

UAE to UN: Al Jazeera anti-Semitic, promotes terrorism

• Cabinet minister to Bloomberg News: Israel seeks unprecedented direct flights to Saudi Arabia for pilgrims traveling to Mecca.

Instead of enduring the 1,000-mile bus route across the Jordan River and through the Saudi desert to reach Islam’s most sacred shrine, Israel hopes its Muslim citizens will be able to fly directly into the kingdom from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, Communications Minister Ayoob Kara said . . .
 
“Reality has changed,” Kara said in an interview this week at his office in Jerusalem. “This is a good time to make the request, and I’m working hard on it.”
Mecca
• Israel’s security cabinet didn’t reach any decision on transferring land to the Palestinian city of Qalqilya yesterday. More at the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel and Ynet.

• Palestinians told AFP that a cut in PA stipends to prisoners and the families of terrorists could trigger a Palestinian crisis. What does that say about Israel’s peace partners?

• Hmmmmmm. Foreign Policy reports that the Syrian ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia specifically bars Iran forces and their proxies near the Israeli or Jordanian borders. But analysts questioned whether the Russians can really enforce this over the long-term.

• Palestinian workers in Israel, by the numbers, based on The Media Line.

“More than 30,000”: Israeli work permits given to Palestinians in 2017.
100,000: Palestinians working in Israel or settlements.
400,000: Unemployed West Bank Palestinians.
1,000: Palestinians now employed in construction in Efrat alone.
200-500 NIS: Typical daily earnings of one Palestinian worker in Israel.
70 NIS: Typical daily earnings of one Palestinian worker in the PA, anecdotally.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Charles Bybelezer: The Taylor Force Act: A pathway or roadblock to peace?
– Liel Liebovitz: In praise of Thom Yorke’s Israel policy
– Vernon Bogdanor: The failure to confront anti-Semitism within Labour amounts to institutional racism
– Nathaniel Belmont and Lenny Ben-David: Creation of Western Wall plaza in 1967 was necessary and legal
– Nadav Shragai: A red line for Jordan
– Amos Harel: Israel’s cyber authority braces for foreign involvement in elections

• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Daoud Kuttab on Hebron.

Featured image: CC BY daliscar1; wine via Vimeo/Kfir Harbi; Mecca CC BY-NC-ND With Luv;

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07102017-energy-deal/
Israel, PA Sign Major Energy Deal
Israel Daily News Stream8 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. The Israeli Electric Corp. transferred power to the PA in a landmark energy deal intended to move the Palestinians towards energy independence.

This type of agreement is the first of its kind, marking the inauguration of a new power plant in Jenin, which will be first of four stations constructed across the West Bank. The agreement also delineates the payments the PA will make to Israel in order to buy the fuel needed to run the plant.

2. Hamas claims PA President Mahmoud Abbas cut the salaries of 37 of its West Bank lawmakers. It’s all about politics and pressuring Hamas, but if Abbas really wants save money, he may as well cut the salaries of all 132 lawmakers of the Palestinian Legislative Council. It hasn’t convened in 10 years. Jerusalem Post coverage.

3. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani rebuked the chairman of the parliament’s delegation for relations with Palestine (DPAL) for giving a platform to the families of Palestinian terrorists, reports the European Jewish Press.

Earlier this month, MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis, who heads the ad hoc delegation, invited the wife of Marwan Barghouti and daughter of Ahmad Sa’adat to Strasbourg “under the pretext of discussing ‘the situation of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails after the hunger strike.'” Their appearance drew sharp protest from across the parliament’s political spectrum.

Barghouti, who headed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was convicted of five counts of murder in 2004. Sa’adat was convicted for heading the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and is widely believed to have masterminded the 2001 assassination Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

Antonio Tajani
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani

4. What’s The Story Behind This Hebron Photo Essay? A slide show purports to highlight the abuse of Palestinians, but the photos have no captions and show nothing wrong.

5. LA Times and BDS’ Peaceful Hatred and Bigotry: Why is the LA Times unconcerned about hateful BDS vitriol?

Israel and the Palestinians
• An Israeli soldier was moderately injured in a car ramming-stabbing attack near Tekoa this afternoon. A Palestinian tried to run over soldiers, then was shot and killed when he stepped out of the car holding a knife. More at the Jerusalem Post and Ynet.

• Israel’s offshore gas fields and shipping lanes will be secured with a NIS 1.5 billion ($420 million) plan featuring missile defense batteries, electronic warfare systems and more, the Times of Israel reports.

Wing Loong
A Chinese-made Wing Loong attack drone

• Ynet: A video posted online by Islamic State in the Sinai claims a drone seen hovering overhead during last week’s attack on Egyptian soldiers is Israeli. Islamic State claims the appearance of the drone “proves” Israel is supporting Egypt’s fight against jihadists in the Sinai.

But Egyptian media reported that that unmanned aerial vehicle was a Chinese-made Wing Loong attack drone which the Egyptian military began using months ago.

On Friday, 26 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing and shooting attack. Israel said a number of ex-Hamas figures participated in the deadly ambush.

• This snippet in The Guardian has me wondering: If you live in Gaza and only have two-to-four hours of electricity, how do you get your news? And why does it matter?

In the one-room kiosk selling pigeons and chickens that he manages, just off the camp’s main market, Ayman Nasser, 32, is sitting on the street with his friends in search of a sea breeze.
 
His face is illuminated by the light of his mobile phone. He has one battery-powered light burning in his shop.
 
“Part of the problem is that we don’t have any news. Who should we blame for this? Hamas, Israelis, Abbas?” he said.
Around the World
• Pro-Palestinian activists trying to disrupt a Radiohead concert in Scotland got their comeuppance from frontman Thom Yorke. The moment was caught on video.

During the band’s Friday night concert at the TRNSMT Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, several activists raised Palestinian flags as well as a “Radiohead: #canceltelaviv” sign, and held demonstrations outside the venue, causing lead singer Thom Yorke to respond.
 
According to Consequence of Sound, prior to the band’s performance of “Myxomatosis,” Yorke reportedly exclaimed, “Some f#cking people!” while staring out into the crowd. He was also caught giving the middle finger to the flag wavers.
It’s not the first time Yorke has denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) against Israel. In a June interview with Rolling Stone, Yorke more fully articulated his criticisms. Radiohead is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park on July 19.

Thom Yorke
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke signals his displeasure with BDS activists trying to disrupt the group’s performance at Glasgow’s TRSNSMT Festival on July 7, 2017.

• The Wall St. Journal examines how the network news tries to game the Nielsen TV ratings. For shame . . .

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

– Alex Fishman: Israel a key player in Syria ceasefire deal
– Amos Harel: Syrian cease-fire: The good news may lead to bad news
– Elizabeth Tsurkov: How long will the southern Syria cease-fire last?
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Despite ceasefire deal, Iranian stronghold in Syrian Golan still possible
– Shlomo Puterkovsky: When nothing is sacred, UNESCO ruling comes as no surprise
– Michael Lobovikov: Hebron: Our heritage is the answer
– Jagdish N. Singh: Indo-Israeli ties: New heights
– James Dorsey: Gulf crisis opens door to power shift in Palestine

Featured image: CC0 Unsplash; Tajani CC BY-NC-ND European Parliament; drone via Wikimedia Commons; Yorke via YouTube/karindgr;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-07092017-cease-fire/
Syrian Cease-Fire Begins Near Israeli Border
Israel Daily News Stream8 hours ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. A cease-fire in southern Syria near the borders with Israel and Jordan went into effect today. The deal was brokered by the US and Russia and got a cautious Israeli endorsement. According to media reports, Jerusalem and Amman had been consulted by both Washington and Moscow over several months to allay concerns that Iran will try to set up a permanent presence along the border. Various cease-fires in Syria failed to take hold. The Jerusalem Post explains the theory behind this one:

The ceasefire for southern Syria is meant to keep all forces pinned to their current positions, said Jordan’s government which participated in the talks.
 
This would prevent further advances by forces under Iran’s command, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.
More at AP and the Times of Israel.

2. The UN Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution declaring Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs to be a Palestinian world heritage site endangered by Israel. In a secret ballot, 12 countries approved the resolution while three opposed and six abstained.

The Times of Israel explained Israeli anger especially at the not-so-secret voting process. Ynet reported that one Arab ambassador astonishingly apologized to Israeli Ambassador Carmel Shama-Hacohen for not voting against the resolution over the ballot’s lack of secrecy. Haaretz explained what happens next:

The resolution that was proposed by the Palestinians includes two main clauses. The first asserts that Hebron’s Old City and the Tomb of the Patriarchs are Palestinian heritage sites, and will be registered as such in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The second asserts that the two sites are to be recognized as being in danger, meaning that each year UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee will convene to discuss their case.
Israel responded by cutting $1 million from its UN funding to build a museum of Jewish heritage in Hebron, and advanced plans for a tourist center with historical displays in the City of David, just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. Two other “Palestinian” world heritage sites are Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and the stone terraced landscape of Battir.

Seth Frantzman lays out five reasons the UNESCO vote matters

3. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai in two years. On Friday, 26 soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing and ambush near the Gaza border town of Rafah. Israeli officials, per the Times of Israel, claimed four of the terrorists were former Hamas members. Asharq al-Awsat adds:

If the reports that Palestinians participated in the attack were true, Hamas will be in hot waters especially after it had pledged to monitor the borders. In addition, Egyptian army’s reports that extremist members from Gaza were part of attacks against Egypt will be confirmed.
 
Sources close to the matter in Gaza stated that despite intensified measures taken by Hamas, some extremist members are able to leave Gaza and join ISIS in Sinai.
4. Sky News Misleads on Hebron Holy Site: The Tomb of the Patriarchs was built by Muslims? Really?

5. Do Israel Supporters Promote Anti-Arab Hate Crimes? Shame on James Zogby for plumbing the depths of a baseless smear.

6. HR Success: Newsweek Apologizes, Retracts Two Biased Articles: Israel is Israel, and it no longer backs Al-Qaida-allied jihadists in Syria.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Jerusalem Post: Gaza sewage forces closure of Israeli beach.

With dwindling electricity supplies unable to power the Strip’s already meager wastewater treatment infrastructure, raw sewage is flowing not only through the channels in Gaza, but also to the Israeli beaches of Ashkelon and the Nahal Hanun riverbed.
• I know Hebron’s important to Islam, but I’ve never seen it ranked up there with the three holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Yet The Independent‘s Bethan McKernan writes:

The city is regarded as the second most important site in Judaism, and one of Islam’s four holy cities.
Thanks to UNESCO and papers like The Independent, it won’t be long till Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tiberias, Beersheva, Ashkelon, and Eilat become part of Islam’s top 10 list of holy cities.
Ancient Hebron by J.C. Armytage

• South Africa’s ruling party wants to downgrade the country’s embassy in Israel to an “interests office.” The move came at the African National Congress’ national policy conference, the Times of Israel reports:

Anti-Israel activists celebrated the move, while Israeli officials shrugged it off as a political policy recommendation that may never actually be implemented by the government.
• Reuters takes a closer look at the improving ties between Hamas and Egypt and their implications for Palestinian politics. The Guardian does likewise, with more emphasis on the role of Mohammed Dahlan, the PA’s former Gaza strongman.

Mark Rutte
Dutch PM Mark Rutte

• Holland’s Prime Minister slammed Israel for dismantling solar panels in a West Bank village. The Dutch government provided $600,000 for the panels, which were put up without Israeli permission in the village of Jubbet al-Dhib.
In recent years, Israel has cracked down on illegal Palestinian structures funded by the European Union. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel is responsible for administration and security of Area C of the West Bank, where Jubbet al-Dhib is located. In 2015, the Daily Mail exposed how EU funding for the illegal structures violated international law.

• Jordan Valley farmers hit back at BDS

• According to French media reports picked up by Ynet, Iran is building two missile factories in Lebanon, and they’re said to be 50 meters underground to protect from Israeli airstrikes.

• Good news: There’s 13 percent more gas off Israel’s shores than previously thought. More at UPI.

offshore gas
An aeriel view of the Israeli ‘Tamar’ gas processing rig 24 km off the Israeli southern coast of Ashkelon. Noble Energy and Delek are the main partners in the Tamar gas field, estimated to contain 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. June 23, 2014. Photo by Moshe Shai/FLASH90

• Poland to buy US Patriot system with Israeli-made missiles. You read that right.

Poland demanded the Israeli interceptor missile, which was developed with Raytheon and is marketed in the world under the name “SkyCeptor,” because of its better performance compared to the American Patriot interceptor and its considerably lower price, which stands at only 10 percent of the price of the American counterpart—$450,000 compared to $4.5 million.
• Just wait till the boycotters see this tidbit from Cycling News.

The 2018 Giro d’Italia will start in Jerusalem and become the first Grand Tour to begin outside of Europe, Cycling Weekly has learned . . .
 
The plan is for a Giro big start based around the holy city of Jerusalem. After a possible time trial to kick off the race on May 5, it would continue with two road stages, one to the south, and one possibly ending in Tel Aviv.
Giro d’Italia
Cyclists in the 2012 Giro d’Italia

Around the World
• Jewish Chronicle: In a UK House of Lords debate, peer and former BBC chairman Lord Michael Grade blasted his former channel’s news service for “anti-Israel bias.”

• Mennonite Church USA voted to divest from companies it says benefit from “Israeli occupation” of the Palestinians.

• I suppose scheduling gay pride events on Jewish holidays is a more polite, way of keeping offensive Jewish stars away from LGBTQ events like one coming up in Durham, North Carolina, right?

NC Pride organizers apologize over Yom Kippur conflict



• London mayor calls on UK home secretary to fully ban Hezbollah. Move comes in response to Hezbollah flags flown at recent Quds Day rally. More at the Jewish News.

• British police are investigating a Muslim activist who claimed London’s Grenfell Tower fire victims were murdered by Zionists. Nazim Ali, a director of the Islamic Human Rights Commission was speaking at an Israel-bashing Quds Day rally days after the massive fire.

At least 80 people were confirmed killed in the conflagration; police say the final death count may not be known for months.

• Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Carr has been quietly pushing the Australian Labor Party to adopt more pro-Palestinian positions. The Australian takes a closer look in articles one and two, along with related analysis and background.

Roger Waters
Roger Waters

• A documentary taking a critical look at the avid Israel-bashing of former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters was overdue. The Observer picked up on journalist Ian Halperin‘s soon-to-be-released video, Wish You Weren’t Here. There’s a trailer on YouTube, though I had problems with the sound quality.
In preparation for the documentary, Halperin interviewed leaders in the South African anti-apartheid struggle. They found Waters’ comparison to Israel offensive and demeaning to their people’s suffering.
 
“I’ve met Mandela,” said Halperin. “I’ve met all the leaders who fought to liberate South Africa. Waters doesn’t know what he’s talking about. South Africans are insulted by his claims. You can argue with some of Israel’s policies, no problem. But to call for a universal boycott of Israel is deplorable, baseless and unfounded. It’s an anti-Semitic attack.”
Commentary/Analysis
• The Syrian ceasefire’s on my mind . . .

– Seth Frantzman: Who wins and loses from Syrian cease-fire deal?
– Zvi Bar’el: Israel will have to live with Russian dominance on its border
– Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: Israel’s relations with the Syrian rebels: An assessment

• Plenty of commentary to chew on from the Israeli and Indian press over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit.

– Raphael Ahren: Modi visit shows Israel can improve foreign ties even without a peace process
– Khinvraj Jangid: Ideological convergence, not just business, drives India-Israel ties
– Palki Sharma Uphadhyay: Israel and India’s not-so-secret friendship
– Sadanand Dhume: India gives Israel a firm embrace (click via Twitter)
– Ron Kampeas: Here’s why Israel and India’s leaders couldn’t get enough of each other
– Harsh V Pant: India’s pro-Arab stance was never rewarded by the Arab world
– Herb Keinon: Modi visits without once publicly saying ‘Palestinians’
– Dr. Yoav Fromer: Israel-India relations were born in Oslo
– Yaakov Katz: Where’s the diplomatic isolation?
– Marc Schulman: Why Modi was so welcome in Israel
– Tunku Varadarajan: Modi and Netanyahu begin a beautiful friendship (click via Twitter)
– Hindustan Times (staff-ed): India-Israel ties are no longer hostage to idealistic concerns
– The Hindu (staff-ed): Modi reaffirms special ties

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

– Tovah Lazaroff: UNESCO’s Hebron vote just the opening Palestinian salvo against Israel
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Pawns and patriarchs
– Avi Issacharoff: Dahlan’s grand plans for Gaza’s revival threaten to sideline Abbas
– Robert Fulford: If the Palestinians care about peace, why do they pay salaries to terrorists?
– James Mendelsohn: Closing the loophole: time to clip Hizballah’s ‘wings’
– Jonathan Marks: The Mennonites divest!
– Nadav Shragai: Selective ‘documentation’
– Manfred Gerstenfeld: The German media and the demonization of Israel

Featured image: CC BY-ND Mark Shahaf; Rutte CC BY-NC-ND European Council; Giro d’Italia via Wikimedia Commons; Roger Waters CC BY-NC-ND Aktiv I Oslo.no; Indian palm CC BY Yogesh Mhatre;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-070617-idf-operation-palestinian-weapons/
IDF Operation Discovers Palestinian Weapons-Manufacturing Equipment
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. The IDF, the Shin Bet, the Border Police and the Israel Police carried out a joint operation overnight Wednesday during which they discovered weapons-manufacturing equipment in the Palestinian village of Al-Ram northeast of Jerusalem.

Following the discovery, the security forces sealed off two of the illegal workshops while two lathes were confiscated along with numerous other weapons. Another lathe was located in a village in situated in the Etzion Regional Division.

2. A ringing endorsement as Hamas praises a resolution by the United Nations’ cultural body condemning Israeli activity in eastern Jerusalem and the Old City, and urging the UN to prevent the “Judaization” of those areas.

3. More than 60 artists, including four Pulitzer Prize winners and other prominent writers, actors, directors and playwrights, have signed an open letter calling on New York’s Lincoln Center to cancel performances of a play co-produced by two Israeli theater companies and backed by the Israeli government.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Despite no evidence to back it up and an outright Israeli denial, the Palestinians have accused Israel of making payments to individuals convicted of launching attacks against their people. Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, told the London-based Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that the Israeli government was supplying a monthly salary to several individuals convicted of the murders of Palestinians. Perhaps the question should be why is Newsweek even bothering to report cynical Palestinian propaganda designed to deflect attention from their own very real payments to terrorists.

• Indian PM Narendra Modi, on a three-day official visit to Israel, met Moshe Holtzberg, the 11-year old son of Chabad emissaries murdered in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Then 2-years old, Moshe was rescued from the scene by his Indian nanny and both now live in Israel. The heartfelt meeting is well worth watching.

• The 20th Maccabiah Games, known as the “Jewish Olympics,” will open tonight with a record 10,000 athletes. It is the third largest sporting event in the world, according to organizers.

• Newly elected Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday suggested that Hamas is close to reaching a prisoner swap deal with Israel, in his first major speech since assuming the position.

• A new survey of the Palestinian public shows a significant decrease in support for an armed intifada. Three months ago, support stood at 51%, while today, only 39% support violence. Interestingly, more than half of the respondents said they support nonviolent resistance.

Around the World
• Canada’s Halifax Pride festival will be without the support of several organizations this year as the festivities are being boycotted. Why? Because an attempt to remove a pro-Israel campaign from the festival was defeated. This is just the latest example of Jewish or pro-Israel LGBT organizations being treated like pariahs.

• The UK government has acknowledged in recent days that it is withholding a study on the Saudi role in fostering extremism in Britain, and opponents have accused PM Theresa May of pandering to the Saudi royals to protect British trade deals.

Commentary/Analysis
• Why do women become terrorists? Candida Moss in the Daily Beast says:

Another reason we find female radicals especially shocking is due to the association of women with notions of pacifism and maternal love. Often women are thought of or function as enablers of jihad via their children. A Hadith notes that Paradise is laid at the feet of one’s mother, and women play a prominent role in encouraging violence. But women are not only the potential mothers of terrorists. Brown points to the words of Reem Rayishi, a Hamas activist who blew up herself and four Israelis in 2004: “I have two children and love them very much. But my love to see God was stronger than my love for my children, and I’m sure that God will take care of them if I become a martyr.”
• As the South Australian parliament passes a motion that calls on the federal government to recognize “the state of Palestine … and announce the conditions and timelines to achieve such recognition,” Israeli Ambassador to Australia Shmuel Ben Shmuel gets op-ed space in The Australian:

Unilateral recognition rewards the Palestinians for their behaviour thus far, which has been characterised by violence and obstructionism. It legitimises the Palestinian campaigns of incitement against Israel and legitimises the ongoing payments by the Palestinian Authority of $300 million of international aid money a year to the families of deceased terrorists who have murdered Israel­is, and convicted terrorists jailed in Israeli prisons. It legitimises the naming of schools and streets after terrorists and the indoctrination of the population with hate propaganda against Israelis and Jews. It encourages their refusal to recognise the legitimacy of a Jewish state within any borders. A unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state does not bring peace; it drives it further away.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– For India and China, the Cold War Is Over and They Have Billions of People to Feed – David Rosenberg

– Time to Call Out Activists’ Anti-Semitic Bigotry – Rabbi Abraham Cooper

http://honestreporting.com/idns-indian-pm-visits-israel/
Indian PM Visits Israel
Israel Daily News Stream1 day ago

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Today’s Top Stories
1. Narendra Modi is set to become India’s first Prime Minister to visit Israel, 25 years after the countries established diplomatic relations.

The Indian premier, who referred to the “deep and centuries-old” connection between the two states, is to spend 3 days in Israel which will include a visit to Yad Vashem, a speech to 4000 Indian Jews, and a trip to Haifa to remember the fallen from World War One in which Indian troops fought as part of the British Empire. According to the Indian Embassy nearly 900 Indian soldiers are buried in cemeteries across Israel.

In an honor that is reserved to a select few, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be joining his guest “at many events during his visit as befits the leader of the largest democracy in the world.”

Talks will address a range of topics including security, defense, and agriculture while boosting economic ties and furthering people-to-people interactions will also be on the agenda.

A lot has been written about this historic moment, here are a few of our favorites:

As a symbol of the collaboration between Israel and India, Benyamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi wrote a joint op-ed in the Times of India.
Newsweek examines what the two countries hope to achieve by this visit: including security cooperation and support on the international stage.
The Daily Mail raises an important lesson for all countries: that India’s years of support for Arab states (including by distancing itself from Israel) was not reciprocated nor rewarded.
Thought Israelis were all white and European? Think again. Israel’s highly diverse population includes Indian Jews, and this visit holds a special meaning for that community.
2. Border police said they foiled a terror attack yesterday after finding a bag of knives, stun grenades and Molotov cocktail materials during the search of a Palestinian vehicle at a checkpoint near east Jerusalem. The international media loves to demonize Israel over the existence of checkpoints as in this Washington Post series we critiqued (in fairness to the Washington Post it is only one of many similar offenders). While such critiques focus on inconvenience to Palestinians, they almost never discuss the risk of violence and death to Israelis, nor the fact that the decisions to carry out these attacks are entirely in Palestinian control. Case-in-point: as of the writing of this IDNS, we have seen exactly no coverage at all of this incident in the international media. Is it any wonder that so many people don’t understand why checkpoints exist?

3. Speaking of anti-Israel resolutions, UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, is set to vote on yet another anti-Israel resolution: this time designating the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy site to Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, a world heritage site in danger and one which is within the “state of Palestine”.

UNESCO has been a platform for the promotion of anti-Israel rhetoric for quite some time now, criticized by the Director General of the UNESCO itself Irina Bokovo, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and by a number of UN Secretaries General including the recently elected Antonio Guterres.

Not to be outdone, HonestReporting has also spoken out on UNESCO in numerous articles, as well as in this catchy and shareable meme, as relevant now as when we first published it:

4. After persistent efforts by HonestReporting and HR followers, the Guardian appears to be following a new approach to writing about “Israel’s holiest site.”

Israel and the Palestinians
• The Israeli Labor Party election has finally taken place after having been postponed due to the Britney Spears concert in Tel Aviv. (Yes, you read that right!) The big winners: former Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and former Environment Protection Minister (then under the Kulanu Party) Avi Gabbay. The two will face off in another vote next Monday to see who will lead the party. In any case MK Isaac Herzog will be relinquishing his position as current party head.

• Israel’s recent efforts to establish connections with African states has not gone unnoticed by Palestinian leadership, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a speech to the 29th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

The Israeli state of occupation’s efforts to participate in your regional conferences and organize continental conferences encourages it to continue its arrogance, occupy Palestine and deny the Palestinian people’s rights
Isn’t it possible that not absolutely everything Israel ever does is about Palestinians?

Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Africa in 2016 and met with seven heads of state and did so again in June of this year when he addressed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit in Liberia.

Most African states belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, which is a voting block within the UN, and have historically supported Palestinian causes and resolutions. However, Israel’s efforts seem to be paying off already: in June, 2016 Israel received 103 of 175 votes to be elected to head the UN Legal Committee, the first time Israel has been elected to chair one of the permanent UN committees. In another encouraging sign: though anti-Israel resolutions are still a fixture of the UN, they are passing by narrower margins every time, often garnering support from only, or almost only, Arab nations.

• The World Heritage Committee observed a moment of silence for victims of the Holocaust in Krakow, Poland just days before the 21 member body is to vote on a motion that would recognize the Tomb of the Patriarchs as a Palestinian site that is “in danger,” presumably under threat by Israel. Member states, led by Cuba, held a minute of silence for Palestinians, equating them with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. It is a dark irony that some of the worst chapters of the Holocaust took placea stone’s throw from the site of this event: at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Shama Hacohen, Israel’s envoy remained seated during the minute of silence for Palestinians, saying that the activity had made no effort to distinguish those Palestinians who had died as “terrorists” and as “martyrs” while carrying out deadly attacks.

Want to see the event for yourself? Take a look at this video, courtesy of UN Watch:



The World Heritage Committee, is examining inscription requests for 35 sites during its Krakow meeting, which began Sunday and ends July 12.

• Not all is bad in the world of international diplomacy as shown by Danny Danon’s guided tour around Israel alongside some of his fellow UN ambassadors: Australia, Estonia, Gabon, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Poland and Togo. According to Danon, the purpose of the trip is:

To defeat the lies spread about our capital city at the UN, nothing is more important than for my fellow ambassadors to learn the truth about Jerusalem and see the beauty of this city firsthand
The ambassadors, led by Danon, will have the opportunity to visit the Northern border, the southern region and Tel Aviv before meeting Netanyahu and other officials in Jerusalem. The delegation is also scheduled to travel to Ramallah, to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.

Mideast Matters
• Newsweek speculates on the possibility that Hezbollah, the Iranian-sponsored Lebanese terrorist organization which has been propping up the Assad regime, could potentially go to war with Israel, amid growing tensions.

While Hezbollah fighters have gained fighting experience and amassed a substantial arsenal of weapons it has also suffered losses and would find itself in a weak position to fight in Syria on one front, maintain power in Lebanon on an a second front and face Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon on a third one.

Hilal Khashan, a politics professor at the American University of Beirut confidently states:

If Israel wants to launch an all-out war, Hezbollah would stand no chance.
Nonetheless, Hezbollah remains the strongest sub-state actor in the world with a force of 20,000 fighters backed by an additional 25,000 reservists. The terror organization also possesses an estimated 120,000 – 150,000 missiles, more than most actual nations. Even if it is a foregone conclusion that Hezbollah would lose in such a conflict, Israel would likely pay a heavy price in both physical destruction and human life.

• Saleh al-Arouri, one of the most wanted Palestinian terrorists, believed by Israeli intelligence to have planned the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in the summer of 2014, has moved to Lebanon where he is being hosted and protected by Hezbollah. On June 5, Palestinian sources confirmed that Qatar — which is embroiled in a boycott by Saudi Arabia and four other Arab states — had asked several top Hamas officials to leave for Lebanon, Turkey and Malaysia. Hamas currently maintains its headquarters in Qatar. Is this an initial sign that the pressure on Qatar may put an end to its hosting of Hamas? Time will tell…

 

Commentary/Analysis
• Columnist Bari Weiss says in her New York Times op-ed, “I’m Glad the Dyke March Banned Jewish Stars.” To fill in a little context: last weekend, at a lesbian march in Chicago, three women carrying Jewish pride flags — rainbow flags embossed with a Star of David — were kicked out of the celebration on the grounds that their flags were a “trigger.” An organizer of the Dyke March told the Windy City Times that the fabric “made people feel unsafe” and that she and the other members of the Dyke March collective didn’t want anything “that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism” at the event.

So why is Ms. Weiss glad about this? She explains:

Has there ever been a crisper expression of the consequences of “intersectionality” than a ban on Jewish lesbians from a Dyke March?
“Intersectionality,” is the recently popular notion that the suffering of any oppressed group parallels the suffering of all other oppressed groups. This gives rise to the following ill-informed, but unsurprising, conclusion: that Palestinians are oppressed, and therefore all people of good conscience must oppose Israel and (in this case at least) also oppose symbols of Judaism.

To Ms. Weiss’s point, there is something to be said for finally seeing proponents of “intersectionality” express a certain clarity on the matter.

In recognition of the hypocrisy and anti-Semitism of the Chicago event, we produced this shareable meme:



• Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is being called out in a commentary by Andrew Bennett for its anti-Semitism. Bennet notes that the  group has ties to Alison Weir, an anti-Semite known for having openly spread blood libels share by white supremacists, and that it also has ties to writer Miko Peled, who has drawn attention to himself for anti-Semitic tweets. Bennet goes on to examine a series of JVP t-shirts and a recently released JVP video that blames Jews for (of all things) American police violence. If you’re curious to see some of the JVP twisted logic in action, take a look

JVP claims that no matter what it says, it could never possibly be considered anti-Semitic, because its membership includes Jews. In fact, the international definition of anti-Semitism (adopted by almost all of the Western world) does not make any exceptions for the ethnicity of the speaker. Thus, being Jewish does not provide anyone with immunity from the ability to engage in anti-Semitism.


Speaking to this point the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement that JVP:

…uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and to provide the movement with a veneer of legitimacy.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– More gas offshore Israel than originally thought – Daniel J. Graeber
– Egypt agrees to open Rafah border crossing – Alex Fishman

Featured image: CC0 Pexels;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06292017-abbas-taking-over-gaza/
Abbas Taking Over Gaza?
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. Reports suggest that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is considering wresting power away from Hamas by declaring Gaza a “rebel district,” and effectively announcing a state of emergency. Though Abbas’s Palestinian Authority is officially the only Palestinian government, Hamas remains firmly in control of Gaza on a practical level. It is therefore difficult to predict exactly what results this course of action would produce. One possibility is that the current crisis over electricity could expand to shut down banking institutions and even force the evacuation of foreign aid organizations. A more aggressive scenario could involve actual combat between the PA and Hamas, as we saw in the years from 2005 to 2007. Or this could turn out to be nothing more than a “war of words.” Yet the ongoing electricity situation suggests that the parties are becoming more aggressive toward one another than they have been at any time since 2007. At this point, all is mere conjecture.

2.  The civil war in Syria spilled into Israel again as, “UN observers in Golan come under cross-border fire.” Israel responded with two strikes against Assad regime positions, once again implementing PM Netanyahu’s self-described “zero tolerance policy” with regards to “‘any kind of ‘trickle’ — from mortars, rockets or spillover fire — on any front.” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Thursday warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Israel considers such rocket-fire into Israeli territory to be a “red line.” Israel did not indicate it believes Russia is actually behind such attacks: presumably the message was delivered to Russia because Israel sees the country as a conduit for communicating such messages to the variety of Syrian forces that are active on the ground.

3. Prison parole board grants early release to ex-PM Ehud Olmert. The panel approved the early release after Olmert had served 16 months of his 27-month sentence. The former Israeli PM and Jerusalem mayor was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in the Holyland real estate corruption case, which has been characterized as among the largest graft cases in Israel’s history.

4. Men pray in the men’s section and women pray in the women’s section at the Western Wall. So how did The Irish Times get so confused? Read “Western Wall Gender Confusion at The Irish Times.”

Israel and the Palestinians
• Plans for an artificial island off the coast of Gaza (“Gaza Island“) are still being entertained by the Israeli government in a move that would provide “Palestinians with humanitarian, economic and transportation gateway to the world without endangering Israel’s security.” The idea put forward by Minister for Intelligence Yisrael Katz would allow for the creation of a number of facilities which would contribute to the strip gaining greater autonomy and becoming self-sufficient.

Washington Post shares this video
• Despite constant news attention to the demolition of Palestinian homes (typically for either illegal construction or in response to acts of terrorism by the inhabitants) it turns out that 60% of all illegal Palestinian homes in the West Bank’s “Area C,” are still standing. This according to Marco Ben-Shabat, head of Area C’s enforcement division. (Area C is a portion of the West Bank that, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, is under Israeli civil and security administration). Shabat’s statement to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sparked a row between MK Aida Touma-Sliman of the Joint List party (a political alliance of four Arab-dominated parties) and MK Moti Yogev of Bayit Yehudi (a religious Zionist political party).

• After helping Hamas with some of its electrical needs (and thus bypassing the Palestinian Authority), Egypt and Hamas are creating a “buffer zone”: a 12-kilometer-long (7.5-mile), 100-meter-wide (330-foot) corridor, consisting of an uninhabited, sandy area. It said construction will take about a month. The purpose of the buffer zone is to prevent the flow of weapons and terrorists between Egypt and Gaza, including members of Hamas, Islamic State (ISIS) and others.  There is an important insight in this agreement: apparently Egypt’s assistance with Gaza’s electrical needs does not reflect support for Hamas as it might have appeared at first glance, but rather an opportunity for Egypt to further insulate itself from Hamas’s violence related cross-border activities.

• As a response to the wave of terror attacks that has hit Israel within the last two years, including an attack this month that resulted in the death of 23 year old Jerusalem border police officer Hadas Malka, Israel is implementing some changes, including CCTV drones, at the Damascus Gate to the Old City. (Damascus Gate has been the site of numerous such attacks). Similar terror attacks have taken place across Europe and the Evening Standard raises the point that Europe can learn life saving lessons from Israel’s constantly evolving response to terrorism. According to the Associated Press, in the wake of this increased terrorism in Europe,

There is a heightened awareness and quicker reactions, especially in the hardest-hit countries of France, Britain and Belgium, that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.
HonestReporting addressed the terror attack on Hadas Malka, as well as some of the horribly misleading news coverage, in this video:

Around the World
• Iran used a Star of David as a target for a missile test last year, Israel said Wednesday, distributing satellite images of the site to the United Nations Security Council. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said in a complaint to the Security Council:

This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable….the missile launch is not only a direct violation of UNSCR 2231, but is also a clear evidence of Iran’s continued intention to harm the State of Israel…the targeting of a sacred symbol of Judaism is abhorrent.


• New York Mayor Bill De Blasio has reiterated his commitment to fighting BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) and to protect New York’s Jewish community at a time of heightened anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activity. He did so in the presence of “local Jewish politicians, Consul-General of Israel Dani Dayan and other leaders of the community” at an event celebrating Jewish heritage. The self-defined progressive democrat branded BDS an obstacle to peace as it seeks to undermine “economic opportunity for all in Israel, in the region.”

• The High Court of England and Wales ruled in favor of Palestinian activists over the issue of local government investments stating that “the government acted unlawfully in attempting to restrict the Israel boycott.” The decision was made on legal grounds and should therefore not be considered as an endorsement of the BDS movement. Judge, Sir Ross Cranston, was quick to clarify that:

The conclusion reached in the judgment has nothing to do with the political merits of the claimants.
• David Friedman, US Ambassador to the State of Israel, made his maiden speech on Tuesday focusing on the divisions within Judaism rather than the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Friedman seems to be embracing a new political identity, shifting from his previous negative comments toward left-leaning Jewish organizations: Friedman once called the political activist group J-Street “worse than kapos.”  Friedman has since taken a more unifying and inclusive tone, saying:

The key to Jewish unity is that this is not a question of winning, it is a question of mutual understanding, respect and coexistence…I am as guilty as anyone else for having entered the partisan divide that has, unfortunately, to some extent fractured the Jewish community in the US and in Israel. But it has to end.
Though he did not say so specifically, the Jerusalem Post suggests that Friedman was referring to the current dispute over creation of a section for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

HR’s Senior Editor Daniel Pomerantz talks with US Ambassador David Friedman earlier this week.

• A Time Magazine article entitled, “Were These Holocaust Survivors Forced Into a Ghetto? The Answer Will Determine Their Financial Future,” explores some of the challenges Holocaust survivors face in proving that they are entitled to pensions from the German government. According to one interviewee, Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany:

I’m negotiating with people who — and this has been really inspiring — are second and third generation [descendants of World War II era Germans], and yet they continue to feel a moral obligation to help survivors until the last one is gone.
Notwithstanding the importance of this symbolic gesture by the German government, the article’s headline is somewhat misleading: the payments are far too small to actually impact anyone’s “financial future. ”

For example, a typical payment by the German government to a Holocaust survivor is $381 per month. To put this in perspective: a small studio apartment in an American city like Chicago would typically cost close to three times that amount, and that does not even begin to cover the cost of food, utilities and other living expenses.

• J-TV presents a powerful new documentary about the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK’s Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. The film gives a voice to those who felt ignored in the Chakrabarti Report on anti-Semitism. Presented by Sociology Lecturer of Goldsmiths University – David Hirsh.

• HR’s Managing Editor Simon Plosker appeared on his weekly segment on South Africa’s Chai FM to discuss the latest media stories and bias. You can listen here.

Commentary/Analysis
• Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur shares his thoughts on the controversy over the so called “Conversion Bill”: apparently it’s not exactly as it seems. The bill is widely seen as an Israeli rejection of non-Orthodox Judaism. Yet according to Gur, a close analysis of the bill shows that it would have little or no effect on Jews obtaining conversions abroad in foreign synagogues (whose conversions would continue to be recognized by the state), nor would it change the status quo for conservative and reform synagogues in Israel (whose conversions are already not recognized by the state).

In fact, the status quo is governed by a 1997 compromise known as the “Neeman framework,” which gives final say on an Israeli conversion to the ultra-Orthodox who control the Chief Rabbinate. The Diaspora side of the compromise confers official Israeli government recognition to local diaspora Jewish movements, including Conservative and Reform. This new bill does not change that. So who’s actually affected by this bill? According to Gur, it is the community of Israeli Modern Orthodox:

Israel’s Modern Orthodox, who often refer to themselves as dati leumi, or national-religious, do not fall under the broadminded openness granted overseas, because they don’t live overseas, nor under the exceedingly (and increasingly) restrictive standards imposed by the Haredim within Israel.
And so, ironically, it is not the Reform or Conservative movements who threaten to topple the Neeman status quo, but these Modern Orthodox.
• Since Oslo (and possibly even before) it has been taken as political gospel that the road to normalization of Israel’s relationships with the Arab world runs through the Palestinians. But a new Israeli strategy seems to be an attempt to bypass the Palestinians. Can it work? Philip Gordon doesn’t think so.

• A group of retired Israeli security officials believe that the key to ending terrorism lies in ending its funding by pressuring the Palestinian Authority. To that end, they have publicly expressed their support for the Taylor Force Act, named for an American West Point graduate killed by Palestinian terrorism while traveling in Israel. Palestinian law and practice provides payments for Palestinians who carry out such attacks: payments which are, in a horrible irony, funded in part by foreign aid provided by the United States, Taylor Force’s own government. The Taylor Force Act would prohibit US funding for such payments. Some Israeli generals have opposed the act, saying it could weaken Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and consequently harm Israeli security.

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

–Yoni Ben Menachem: Whatever Happened to the Term “Palestinian State?”
–Marissa Newman: Knesset speaker, once a prisoner in Siberia, addresses Russian parliament

Featured image: CC0 Pexels;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06272017-israel-responds-to-gaza-rocketfire/
Israel Responds to Gaza Rocketfire
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. In response to a rocket fired into Israel from Gaza, the Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas infrastructure targets in the north and south of the Gaza Strip on Monday night, according to the IDF. Strikes were recorded in at least three locations in Gaza, Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses said, with Hamas bases struck near the southern city of Rafah and Gaza City in the north, as well as open land southeast of Gaza City. Earlier that day, a rocket hit southern Israel, in the Sha’ar Hanegev region, not causing any damage or casualties. The launch was claimed by a Salafist group linked to Islamic State, according to Hebrew media reports.

2. Just when international media has found it popular to demonize Israel for providing Palestinians access to Israeli medical treatment, claiming that the access is insufficient (see our prior critique of this Washington Post article), it turns out that the the vast majority of access is presently blocked by the Palestinian Authority. Haaretz reports that the Palestinian Authority prevents access by Palestinians from Gaza seeking urgent medical care: including patients with cancer and heart disease, and children who need treatments unavailable in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority is currently denying or suspending response on over 90% medical permit requests.

3. The Australian Labor Party has used its parliamentary majority in South Australia to call for the recognition of “the state of Palestine alongside the state of ­Israel,” making it the only Australian legislative body to formally back Palestine statehood.

4. A Huffington Post article defends Hamas and Hezbollah, indicating that they are considered terror organizations only because…Trump. Read: HonestReporting’s critique.

5. On Australian Channel 9’s 60 Minutes, Liam Bartlett produces an appallingly one-sided report on settlements using a Palestinian narrative and outright distortions. Read: HonestReporting’s critique

Israel and the Palestinians
• One of the biggest Palestinian events in Europe may be cancelled by the British government. Palestinian Expo, which includes political discussions, concerts, comedy acts, workshops, a food court and other events, is scheduled to run in London on the weekend of 8 and 9 July. But according to British Secretary of State Sajid Javid, the event also features connections to, and public support for, Hamas: a terror organization proscribed by the British government. Accordingly, Javid has expressed that he is considering forcing the organizers to cancel the event.

•  The “Western Wall issue” is on many people’s minds these days. Times of Israel explains the facts:

The cabinet on Sunday suspended a government-approved plan to establish a pluralistic prayer pavilion at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which was to have had joint oversight by all streams of Judaism, following calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition allies to scrap the deal.
Education and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett adds a clarification:

…there is an apparent campaign of misinformation claiming the [Western Wall] is being closed to Diaspora Jews and that the status of conversions is being changed. This is false…this is why, over the next day, we will hold a series of meetings to listen to the leaders of Diaspora Communities and reach understanding allowing us to end this crisis.
Times of Israel further explains that there are existing sites for egalitarian prayer based on previous compromises, and those sites are unaffected by the present decision. However, those sites are technically considered temporary solutions. The plan that was just suspended would have improved egalitarian access to the area is recognized as the primary Western Wall prayer site, and would also have brought oversight from Conservative and Reform movements to portions of that site.

• Many Palestinians of eastern Jerusalem have long shunned integration into Israel, typically declining citizenship and in many cases refusing to learn Hebrew. Is it possible the mood is finally changing? Isabel Kershner of the New York Times suggests that it is, pointing out increasing engagement in the bagrut, (essentially the Israeli SAT) which ultimately leads to study in Israeli universities, as well as increasingly taking mainstream jobs in various cities and neighborhoods beyond the Arab sector.

 Around the World
• A “subsidiary” march at Chicago’s LGBT Parade (commonly known as the “Gay Pride Parade”) asked three marchers to leave for flying flags with the star of David (along with the iconic LGBT color pattern) saying that the flags were “triggering,” and made them feel “unsafe.” The AJC (American Jewish Committee) issued a statement on their Facebook page calling the incident, “anti-Semitism–plain and simple.” However, the Chicago Tribune points out that within the main parade, a number of flags containing the star of David flew without incident.

• The U.S. government will seek to collaborate with Israel and other countries to develop new ways to thwart computer hacks and other cyber attacks, according to Thomas Bossert, U.S. President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser. According to Bossert:

The agility Israel has in developing solutions will innovate cyber defenses that we can test here and bring back to America. Perfect security may not be achievable but we have within our reach a safer and more secure internet.
Commentary/Analysis
• Who’s really behind suffering in Gaza over the electricity crisis? In the IBT, Julie Lenarz explains that it is actually Hamas.

• In light of international pressure for the Palestinian Authority to stop paying salaries to terrorists, an analysis by Daniel Siryoti and the Israel Hayom Staff indicates that the PA has instead resorted to funneling those funds through NGOs, in order to continue the practice.

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

– PressTV: Ayatollah Khamenei: Muslims obliged to fight against Israel
– Thomas Joscelyn: Two US cases provide unique window into Iran’s global terror network

Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Vitor Pina;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06252017-syria-air-strikes/
IDF Strikes Syrian Targets in Response to Mortar Shells on Golan Heights
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel retaliated on Saturday with air strikes on Syrian military targets after several errant mortar shells fell on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. While no Israelis were injured, two Syrian soldiers were killed in the Israeli air strikes. The IDF has released video footage of strikes on two Syrian tanks and a heavy machine gun.

The spillover from the Syrian civil war has continued Sunday with more mortars landing on the Israeli Golan Heights.

2. Ugly scenes in Tehran and elsewhere as the Iranian regime commemorates Al-Quds Day. According to the LA Times, President Hassan Rouhani and other top officials attended the rallies while state television repeatedly played a song whose lyrics proclaimed that Israel “will be wiped out.”

Rouhani, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, said Israel supports “terrorists in the region.” Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, in a speech to Tehran demonstrators, called Israel the “mother of terrorism” and said that in the “20th century, there was no event more ominous than establishing the Zionist regime.”

The rally also inaugurated a huge digital countdown display at Tehran’s Palestine Square, showing that Israel will allegedly cease to exist in 8,411 days from the day of the rally.

Plenty of unpleasant photos from the rally courtesy of the Daily Mail.

3. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says the next war with Israel could see thousands of Shi’ite militia fighters join forces with Hezbollah to fight Israel.

“This could open the way for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of fighters from all over the Arab and Islamic world to participate – from Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said in a television speech.

The JPost’s Seth Frantzman sets out five reasons that Hezbollah’s latest statement has ramifications for Israel and the region.

4. Hey Newsweek: Israelis Want Their Country Back: Newsweek twists a quote by Israel’s Minister of Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, into a rejection of Israel’s very existence, written by an openly anti-Israel activist.

Israel and the Palestinians
• US President Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether to pull out of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations following a “tense” meeting with White House senior staff and officials in Ramallah, according to London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat on Saturday.

• Speaking at the IDC Herzliya Conference on Wednesday, IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.- Gen. Hertzi Halevi revealed Iran’s massive funding of terror organizations, bankrolling Hezbollah to the tune of $75 million a year, while paying $50m. of Hamas’s budget and approximately $70m. to Islamic Jihad.

• Weighing in on an investigation of a spokesman for the left-wing Breaking the Silence group over testimony in which he claimed to have seriously assaulted a Palestinian during his IDF service in Hebron, his commander at the time insists the incident ‘never happened. All soldiers under his command also say it didn’t.’

• Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin have reportedly reinstalled a monument to a terrorist who masterminded a notorious 1974 massacre of Israeli school children, despite intense pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Around the World
• Rock group Radiohead, due to play a concert in Tel Aviv in July, were reportedly met with shouts of “free Palestine” during their headline slot at the Glastonbury music festival. Protesters were apparently waving Palestinian flags as the band performed, while a banner read: “Israel is an apartheid state. Radiohead, don’t play there.” Radiohead had previously expressed their disgust at Roger Waters’ and BDS’s efforts to get them to cancel their Israel appearance.

Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke of Radiohead

• The Qatar crisis rumbles on as Saudi Arabia issues a bucket list of demands including the shuttering of Al Jazeera. The Washington Post looks at why the Saudis hate the TV channel so much while The Atlantic analyzes the station’s central role in the crisis.

• The world just can’t get enough of its favorite Israeli, Gal Gadot a.k.a. Wonder Woman (apart from a few Mideast countries). So we’ve included a nice feature from the Financial Times (via Google).

Commentary/Analysis

“Kingdom of Olives and Ash,” by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman (Harper Perennial)

• A number of media outlets, including the New York Times, have recently published excerpts from a Breaking the Silence sponsored book of essays by prominent novelists, including Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon. In a book review for the Washington Post, Matti Friedman rips the book apart:

The essays vary in tone and quality, but experienced journalists covering the Israel/Palestine story will recognize the usual impressions of reporters fresh from the airport. Cute Palestinian kids touched my hair! Beautiful tea glasses! I saw a gun! I lost my luggage, and that seems symbolic! Arabs do hip-hop! The soldiers are so young and rude! The writers interview the same people who are always interviewed in the West Bank, thinking it’s all new, and believe what they’re told. Chabon, for example, waxes sarcastic that in the West Bank you can spend months in administrative detention if you forget your ID card at home. But that isn’t true.
 
Everything is described with a gravitas suggesting that the writers haven’t spent much time outside the world’s safer corners. Eggers devotes two whole pages to an incident on the Gaza border, where one Israeli guard said he couldn’t pass and then a different one came and let him through. Dave, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re okay.
• Julie Lenarz writes in the International Business Times that Hamas, not Israel, is responsible for Gaza’s suffering:
All of this is a tragedy. But it is a tragedy deliberately manufactured by Hamas that easily could have been avoided. Hamas is doing again what it has done a hundred times before: sacrificing the well-being of Gaza’s civilian population on the altar of cynical political ambitions.
 
Hamas could, if it wanted to, pay for the lack of electricity and ease the suffering immediately. According to data from the Hamas Finance Ministry, the group collects at least $15m (£11m) a month in taxation. But instead of paying for education, medical services and electricity, Hamas invests millions of dollars a year in its military infrastructure and preparations for war, including smuggling tunnels and rockets.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Conrad Black: Palestinian terror and Israel boycotts aren’t a form of ‘dissent.’ They’re just evil and stupid
Featured image: CC BY-ND Gregor Fischer

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06222017-jay-solomon/
Wall St. Journal Fires Reporter For Ties With Arms Dealer
Israel Daily News Stream6 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. The Wall St. Journal fired its veteran foreign affairs reporter Jay Solomon over his “involvement in prospective commercial deals — including one involving arms sales to foreign governments — with an international businessman who was one of his key sources.”

AP laid out Solomon’s conflicts of interest, which prompted the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) to dismiss Solomon. Solomon’s dealings came up in the context of a larger expose of arms dealer Farhad Azima.

As part of its reporting, the AP had asked the Journal about the documents appearing to link Solomon and Azima. The relationship was uncovered in interviews and in internal documents that Azima’s lawyer said were stolen by hackers.
 
“I clearly made mistakes in my reporting and entered into a world I didn’t understand.” Solomon told the AP on Wednesday. “I never entered into any business with Farhad Azima, nor did I ever intend to. But I understand why the emails and the conversations I had with Mr. Azima may look like I was involved in some seriously troubling activities. I apologize to my bosses and colleagues at the Journal, who were nothing but great to me.”
For a deeper understanding of the seriousness of Solomon’s conflict of interest, see Defining Bias: Lack of Transparency.
Jay Solomon

2. A ‘devastating’ survey shows a huge loss of Israel support among Jewish college students.

In sum, the gap between Israel-supporters and detractors is widening. The current Israel advocacy programs are not working, and Jewish college students are the leading defectors from Israel support.
The Jerusalem Post also picked up on the Brand Israel Group’s findings. And see Gary Rosenblatt’s reaction: Are next-gen Americans pulling away from Israel?

3. Israeli police are bracing for last the Friday of Ramadan prayers in Jerusalem.

4. EXCLUSIVE: How Reporting From Israel Changed My Worldview Forever: In an exclusive article for HonestReporting, foreign journalist Hunter Stuart recounts how he was exposed to the realities of reporting from Israel and found that his pro-Palestinian views were dramatically changed as a result.

5. Our very own Simon Plosker appears regularly on South Africa’s Chai FM radio. This week, he discussed with host Howard Feldman the BBC and Al-Quds Day marches. Listen online.

6. HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz was on the i24 News show, News Desk, where he discussed the BBC’s apology for a bungled headline on the murder of an Israeli Border Poicewoman by a Palestinian terrorist.

Israel and the Palestinians
• The Palestinian Authority asked UNESCO to “protect” the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Hebron’s Old City from Israel. The Jerusalem Post writes:

The Palestinian delegation to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in a letter to the World Heritage Center, spoke of “alarming details about the Israeli violations in Al-Khalil/ Hebron, including the continuous acts of vandalism, property damage, and other attacks.”
• Trying to re-start peace efforts, Jared Kushner and David Greenblatt visited Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas for jaw-jaw time. More at the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel and Associated Press. One incident noted by the Times of London caught my eye:

Neither side made any public comment about the meetings, which were held in unusual secrecy: cameramen were not even allowed to film Mr Kushner’s convoy arriving at the prime minister’s residence. One photographer from the Associated Press was ordered to delete the images on his memory card.
• National Public Radio discussed US peace efforts with Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who met with White House envoy Jason Greenblatt.

Commentary/Analysis
• Is Gal Gadot’s casting as Wonder Woman a ‘slap’ in the face of Palestinian women?

Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman: A ‘slap’ in the face of Palestinian women?

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

– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: Saudi Arabia’s young, determined heir
– John Bradley: Unlikely allies: Israel and the Saudis
– Benny Avni: Jared Kushner’s falling into a trap on Mideast peace
– Bassam Tawil: The ongoing drama of Palestinian lies
– Julie Lenarz: Hamas is behind Gaza’s suffering, not Israel
– Nadav Shragai: Jerusalem: Beware of Turks bearing gifts
– Malcolm Lowe: Israel’s new settlement policy: Evaluated and explained
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Jeremy Corbyn and the road to hell

Featured image: CC0 Pexels; Solomon via YouTube/Middle East Institute; Wonder Woman via YouTube/Entertainment Access;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06212017-saudi-shakeup/
What Does Saudi Royal Shakeup Mean for Israel?
Israel Daily News Streamabout 1 hour ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. In a royal shakeup, Saudi King Salman appointed as Crown Prince his 32 year-old son, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Prince Mohammed now replaces his cousin, Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, as first in line to succeed the 81-year-old king. Take your pick of CNN or BBC coverage.

Prince Mohammed currently serves as the kingdom’s defense minister, making him a key figure in the Saudi-led military coalition fighting Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.

And what does this royal reshuffle mean for Israel? According to Haaretz:

Until now, Mohammed bin Salman has been good news for Israel and the United States, as his firm anti-Iranian positions make him an important partner – and not only in the struggle against Iran. Bin Salman agrees with America on the need to thwart Russian influence in the region; to topple President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria; and to act firmly against ISIS and other radical organizations, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hezbollah. During the last two years, several Arab websites have reported that bin Salman also met with top Israelis.

2. Israeli officials are furious over the UN hosting a ’50 years of Israeli occupation’ conference next week.
hidden money3. Is the PA planning to deceive the US and donor countries about its terror stipends? Palestinian Media Watch picked up on what PA movers and shakers are telling their own media.

For example, here’s what Hassan Asfour, a former PA minister and current associate of Muhammad Dahlan, political adversary of Mahmoud Abbas, told the Fatah Voice

“Abbas, despite his initial objection [to the US demand to stop prisoner salary payments], has begun to examine practical options to comply with the American demand in a way that will not lead to an explosion that might lead to his downfall and the downfall of their [Abbas’ and US’] joint plan. Among these options that are being examined with special secrecy, is the option of transferring the prisoners’ and Martyrs’ salaries to a ‘social insurance’ body so that it will look as if it is ‘humanitarian and social aid to needy families’ and not ‘monthly salaries to fighter families.'”
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Daily Telegraph raises an interesting point about a new settlement which Israel broke ground on yesterday.

Plans for the new settlement were approved in March and drew no protest from the US at the time. US officials said they accepted the settlement because Mr Netanyahu promised to build it before Mr Trump laid out his expectations for a slow down in settlement construction.
 
The new settlement will house around 300 Israelis from the settlement of Amona, which was demolished earlier this year after Israel’s supreme court ruled it had been illegally built on private Palestinian land.
Amichai
Construction workers begin work on the new settlement called Amichai, meant to resettle the evacuees of Amona, in Shilo Valley, West Bank, on June 20, 2017. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

• Memo to The Guardian: If you insist on editorializing that “settlements are illegal in international law,” at least have the decency to add that Israel disputes this and that the legal views aren’t so cut and dry. See what Eugene Kontorovich, Mitchell Bard, Eugene Rostow, Moshe Dann and Jeffrey Helmreich say on the matter.

• Israeli police arrested the mother of one of Hadas Malka’s killers on suspicion of incitement. According to Ynet:

The mother was arrested in the village of Deir Abu Mash’al on suspicion of incitement, supporting a terror group and because of recent statements in which she is said to have glorified martyrs and called for attacking Jews. During the arrest, security forces also seized inciting material, flags and posters.
• It’s myopic to assume that the Israeli Left has a monopoly on interest in peace — the majority of Israelis want peace too. But the Irish Times lost perspective on the story through the choice of people chosen to discuss “the occupation.”

Another point: The Israeli Left didn’t collapse because of the failure of peace talks but because of the Second Intifada. However, mentioning that would spoil the mood created by reporter Michael Jansen.
• IDF soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man trying to stab them near the West Bank settlement of Adam, just north of Jerusalem yesterday. Times of Israel coverage.

• US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has Hamas in her sights. She’s calling on the Security Council to designate Hamas as a terror organization “with consequences for anyone who continues to support it.” More at the Jerusalem Post.

Around the World
• EU justice minister to Jerusalem Post: We’re making progress against anti-Semitism on social media.

• Hmmmmmm. Forbes reports that a shipment of phosphates from Morocco-occupied Western Sahara is being held up in South Africa. The phosphates were en route to New Zealand, a country with a selective outrage at occupation.

The Polisario Front, the national liberation movement for Western Sahara, applied for a court order to prevent the ship from leaving port while it pursued its legal case for ownership of the cargo. That interim order was confirmed by the High Court in Port Elizabeth on June 15, which noted that “Morocco has no claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara” and said the case should go to trial.
Commentary/Analysis
Hadas Malka

• Unpacking media coverage of Friday’s deadly Palestinian terror attack, Ira Rifkin explains how the incident “illustrates the deepening fog in which journalists now work.”

Bottom line: When terror groups offer competing claims of responsibility and editors sacrifice nuance for speed, where does that leave news consumers?

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

– Alex Ryvchin: So it’s all about the, er, settlements then?
– Prof. Hillel Frisch: Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is fake news
– Avi Issacharoff: Turning Gaza’s lights back on, Abbas’s rival Dahlan makes dramatic return to center stage
– Alon Ben-Meir: After 50 years of occupation, what’s next: An open letter to President Mahmoud Abbas
– Amos Harel: Israel and Jordan grow closer as Iranian foothold in southern Syria grows stronger
– Amb. Mark Regev: Clarity in fighting terrorism
– Alex Fishman: A miserable failure for Iran’s military industry

Featured image: CC0 Pexels; money CC BY Images Money; Irish Times CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons; CC BY Elisa; with modifications CC BY-SA by HonestReporting;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06192017-israel-rebels/
Israel Secretly Helping Syrian Rebels?
Israel Daily News Stream8 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. Is Israel developing a buffer zone in Syria by secretly supplying rebels near the border with food, medical assistance and money? That’s what the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) reports. It’s remarkable that Syrian rebels now speak on the record about their relationship with Israel.

The Israeli army is in regular communication with rebel groups and its assistance includes undisclosed payments to commanders that help pay salaries of fighters and buy ammunition and weapons, according to interviews with about half a dozen Syrian fighters. Israel has established a military unit that oversees the support in Syria—a country that it has been in a state of war with for decades—and set aside a specific budget for the aid, said one person familiar with the Israeli operation . . 
 
“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” said Moatasem al-Golani, spokesman for the rebel group Fursan al-Joulan, or Knights of the Golan. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”
 
Israel’s aim is to keep Iran-backed fighters allied to the Syrian regime, such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, away from the 45-mile stretch of border on the divided Golan Heights, the three people said.
Golan
Israeli soldiers training in the Golan Heights, 2014

2. Israel began reducing electricity to Gaza, in response to a request from the Palestinian Authority.

3. Escalating the Syrian civil war, Iran fired missiles at Islamic State positions in eastern Syria. The Iranians said the missile strike was retaliation for a pair of terror attacks in Tehran earlier this month, which Islamic State claimed responsibility for. It also came on the heels of the US downing a Syrian war plane “after it dropped bombs near local ground forces supported by the United States.”

See Ron Ben-Yishai and Amos Harel, who comment on the message Tehran’s missile launch sends Israel and the US.


4. Lost Between the Headlines: Honoring Hadas Malka: Why does the news industry deny Israeli victims of terror the focus of headlines?

5. Video: Media, Murder and Israel: When terrorism occurs in other parts of the world, headlines emphasize the victims. But when terror occurs in Israel, headlines instead accentuate the dead terrorist.

Israel and the Palestinians
• According to Israeli media reports, the government ordered what was described as a “de facto construction freeze” of 6,000 housing units in Jerusalem’s disputed neighborhoods of Har Homa, Gilo and Pisgat Zeev.

It may be related to US peace moves. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will reportedly join presidential envoy Jason Greenblatt, who is expected to arrive in the Mideast in the coming days. Greenblatt will be meeting Israeli and Palestinian officials to push forward peace efforts. More on the story at the Times of Israel and Reuters.

Kushner visit more evidence that Trump’s serious on Is-Pal peace. Dares both sides 2 say no to his family. He has leverage if he moves fast.
— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) June 19, 2017
• The conflicting claims of responsibility for Friday’s terror attack got more muddled with the parents of one of the terrorists saying their son was a member of Fatah.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in which Border Policewoman Hadas Malka was killed and four other people wounded. Hamas claimed the attack was carried out jointly with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. According to Israel, the three Palestinians were all unaffiliated.

• Police arrested six Palestinians suspected of throwing firebombs at Jewish homes. According to the Jerusalem Post, five of the six are minors.

• Reuters: Weeks after the US blocked the appointment of ex-Palestinian prime minister Salaam Fayyad as the UN’s envoy to Libya, Secretary General Antonio Guterres will instead tap a former Lebanese cabinet minister for the post.

Around the World
• Worth watching: PBS News Hour takes an in-depth at look at Hezbollah.
• In London, about 1,000 marchers — some waving Hezbollah flags — demonstrated against Israel. Judging from the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News, one especially noteworthy moment of idiocy was when demonstrators blamed “Zionists” for the Glenfell tower tragedy.

London today. Hezbollah flags. ‘Khaibar Yahud’ anti-Jew slogans. Hamas supporters. Why is this allowed? pic.twitter.com/iB5LDCUprJ
— Ed Husain (@Ed_Husain) June 18, 2017
• Tensions are rising between Chile’s Jewish and Palestinian communities. Jews fear the Mideast conflict is being imported to the South American country, reports the Jerusalem Post.

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

– Ben-Dror Yemini: Being right about Gaza power supply is not enough
– Col. Richard Kemp: How to fight Islamic terror effectively — learn from Israel
– Bjorn Brenner: Is Europe more desperate for a Palestinian state than the Palestinians?
– David Ibsen: Qatar enables Hamas’s Gaza oppression
– Tony Duheaume: Hezbollah’s Mahdi Scouts and their road to martyrdom

Featured image: CC0 jarmoluk; Golan CC BY-NC Israel Defense Forces;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06152018-hadas-malka/
Border Policewoman Killed by Palestinian Laid to Rest
Israel Daily News Stream5 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. Thousands of Israelis paid their respects to Hadas Malka, a Border Police Officer killed in a Palestinian terror attack over the weekend. She was laid to rest Saturday night in Ashdod.

Malka succumbed to stab wounds while struggling with a Palestinian terrorist who attacked her in eastern Jerusalem, near Damascus Gate late Friday afternoon. In a second, near-simultaneous attack, two Palestinians using knives and a gun attacked soldiers at Zedekiah’s Cave. Four other people were injured in the two attacks. All three terrorists were killed by responding security forces.

Israel responded by revoking Ramadan entry permits. There were conflicting claims of responsibility between Islamic State and Hamas/Islamic Jihad, while Israeli officials said the three weren’t affiliated with any terror group.

The 23-year-old Malka was from Moshav Givat Ezer. See colleague Eden Panker’s farewell to her sister in arms.


2. Palestinians plan to claim Hebron’s old city and Tomb of the Patriarchs via the UN World Heritage list.

“This is a new front in the war over the holy places that the Palestinians are trying to ignite as part of their propaganda campaign against Israel and the history of the Jewish people,” Israel’s Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama HaCohen told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday . . .
 
If the 21-member committee approves the PA’s request, it would mark the first time that a Jewish holy site under Israeli control was registered to the “State of Palestine.”

Saudi Arabia3. Israel and Saudi Arabia are in talks to establish modest economic ties, according to the Times of London.

Arab and American sources said that the links would start small: allowing Israeli businesses to operate in the Gulf, for example, and letting El Al, the national airline, fly over Saudi airspace . . .
 
The Palestinians are privately furious about the idea, fearing that it would normalise ties with Israel while giving them only the vague promise of a future state.
4. The Gaza Energy Crisis: A Catch-22: In a special guest post exclusive to HonestReporting, Col. (Res.) Grisha Yakubovich, former Head of the Civilian Department in the IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, explains the Gaza electricity crisis and its implications for Israel.

5. Bias by the Numbers – April-May 2017: HR crunches the numbers to compare Israel-related media cultures in Britain and the US.

6. Video: Al Quds Day 2017: Ever since 1979, the last Friday of Ramadan is Al Quds Day, described as a day to support Palestinians and the destruction of Israel.

Israel and the Palestinians
• While this development does say something about the lack real freedom of expression in the West Bank, don’t forget that sites affiliated with Hamas or former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan are really purveyors of “news” or “journalism.”

PA reportedly blocks news sites affiliated with Hamas, Dahlan

Palestinian journalists denounced the move.

• The PA is threatening to drag Israel to the International Criminal Court to protect its stipends to Palestinian terrorists and their families, reports Wafa News via Elder of Ziyon.

• The BBC apologized and changed a headline that sparked an uproar and protests from Jerusalem officials, Donald Trump Jr., and general social media. The opprobrium was over a headline stating “Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem” without mentioning that the three were the terrorists themselves.

The headline now says Israeli policewoman stabbed to death in Jerusalem.


• The UN Economic and Social Council released a scathing report on Israel, particularly accusing the Jewish state of

using “force that has at times been deemed excessive” against the Palestinians, “which may have amounted to extrajudicial executions.”
• Australia’s outgoing Ambassador to Israel, David Sharma, discussed relations between the two countries with Sky News Australia. The ambassador also shared some observations on media coverage:

But that said, I think people can get a distorted impression of Israel, how safe it is, how secure it is, if you only look at the media, because the media’s obviously concerned with stories about conflict or clashes. And that’s part of what goes on in Israel, but it’s a small part. On the whole, Israel looks and feels and seems like a country much like Australia.

Around the World
• Hezbollah flags will indeed be allowed at today’s Al-Quds Day demonstration hate-fest in London.

Flags of proscribed (illegal) organisations will not be allowed. For example, you can bring a Hezbollah flag to show support for the political wing of Hezbollah. This is because the political wing of Hezbollah is not a proscribed organisation.”
• Jerusalem Post: After pressure, German TV will air ‘censored’ documentary on anti-Semitism.

• Just when you thought people couldn’t get more bent out of shape over Israel and Jewish people, along comes a New Zealand interpretation of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” According to the Wellington-based news site, Stuff:

The Wellington City Council has apologised to Sir Tim Rice after the word “Israel” vanished from song sheets featuring the renowned lyricist’s work . . .
 
The president of the Jewish Council, Stephen Goodman, said the lyric change was an example of “people trying to be politically correct where it’s unnecessary to be so”.

• JTA: Ex-police boss seeks review of French cops’ inaction during Jewish woman’s killing by Muslim man.

• BDS activists in the UK are appealing to the High Court to “consider the legality of the Government’s ban on local councils boycotting foreign countries like Israel.”

• I’m impressed with TV talk show host Stephen Colbert for standing up to filmmaker Oliver Stone’s Israel-bashing. Viewers didn’t see it on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert because it wasn’t aired, but one person in the audience told Page Six it was “cringe-worthy” and “painful to watch.”

The audience member explained that as Colbert pressed Oscar winner Stone — who was promoting his new Vladimir Putin Showtime series, “The Putin Interviews” — on his apparent sympathy for the Russian president in spite of claims about Russian interference in the US election, Stone, at a disadvantage, tried to shift the talk to Israel.
 
The source said they “watched from behind [their] hands” as Stone said words to the effect of: “Israel had far more involvement in the US election than Russia.”
 
The “Platoon” director further challenged Colbert by saying, “Why don’t you ask me about that?” — but we’re told that the host shot back, “I’ll ask you about that when you make a documentary about Israel!”
 
(The source described Stone’s Israeli argument as “a classic anti-Semitic canard.”)
You can watch the interview (that aired).

Oliver Stone Stephen Colbert
Filmmaker Oliver Stone appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

• Modern Language Association members pass anti-BDS resolution (you read that right) by 2-1 margin. Background and links at Inside Higher Ed and Legal Insurrection.

• Jordan won’t ban ‘Wonder Woman’ after all.

• Romanian synagogue desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti.

Commentary/Analysis
• Israel cabinet minister Israel Katz took to the Daily Telegraph to call for a “coalition of principles” to fight Islamic terror.

• I barely understand this, but the Harvard Law Review just debunked the settlement bashing UN Security Council resolution 2334.

• Plenty of commentary about the murder of Hadas Malka, the Gaza electricity crisis, and Trump and the peace process:

– Ron Ben-Yishai: The wave of terror surges on
– Yossi Yehoshua: Jerusalem’s false and misleading calm
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: Did the Knife Intifada ever end?
– Avi Issacharoff: True or not, Islamic State’s claim of Friday attack is a statement of intent
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Navigating the Gaza electricity crisis
– Anna Ahronheim: 5 reasons Gaza’s electricity crisis could spark a war
– Judah Ari Gross: Israel and Hamas court catastrophe in high-stakes game of chicken
– Elliott Abrams: Sacrificing Israeli security to hurt Trump
– Yaakov Katz: Why Trump should adopt a bottom-up approach to Mideast peace
– Jonathan Tobin: The PA can’t stop paying terrorists — so Trump can’t make a deal

• Here’s what else I’m reading:

– Fred Maroun: Why I support the Israeli occupation
– Zvi Bar’el: As Qatar crisis rages, Egypt gets closer to Hamas
– Maajid Nawaz: Quds Day: Flying terrorist flags in the capital is an insult to victims of the London attacks
– Liel Leibovitz: Why believing atrocity stories about Israel is stupid, even when they’re on CNN
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians’ real tragedy: Failed leadership
– Prof. Hillel Frisch: When Palestinians are hopeless, terror declines; when hopeful, terrorism increases
– Einat Wilf: No, maestro, the Holocaust did not create Israel
– David Weinberg: Why we shouldn’t divide Jerusalem
– Sir Eric Pickles: How did Corbyn’s comments on Hamas not put off voters?
– Michael Binyon: Saudi Arabia’s trade talks with Israel carry huge risks
– Dr. Jim Salinger: New Zealand’s ‘regret’ looks right from Israel
– Dani Dayan: Why this Israeli official can’t stay silent about Linda Sarsour


Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND laurence lallemand; Saudi Arabia CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons; Stone and Colbert via YouTube/The Late Show With Stephen Colbert; quill CC0 Pixabay;

Snubbing Tillerson, PA Says Terror Stipends to Continue
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. The Palestinians are clearly yanking Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s chain. Follow the bouncing ball . . .

– Tillerson says the PA has changed its policy on terror stipends.
– Israel says PA has not halted payments to terrorists.
– Palestinian official says PA will continue funding terror stipends.

Rex Tillerson
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

2. I knew the Palestinian Authority had cut back on medical aid to Gaza, but I didn’t realize how drastically. According to the Jaffa-based Physicians for Humans Rights Israel, the PA has slashed medical aid to the Strip by 90 percent:

The PA, according to information given to PHRI, used to pay $4 million monthly for the regular operations of 13 government hospitals and 54 primary care centers. In April it was down to $2.3 million, and in May it fell to just $500,000, the organization said.
 
In April, the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted a senior adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas who said Ramallah is slashing the health care budget for Gaza as part of the series of measures meant to coerce Hamas to relinquish some control of the Strip and give it back to the PA.
3. Israel and New Zealand agreed to restore diplomatic ties, but the reconcilation’s proving to be bumpy. Relations ruptured in December when Wellington co-sponsored UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. However, Wellington’s letter of “regret” to Jerusalem was so carefully worded that it ultimately satisfied nobody, with some saying New Zealand caved in to Israel and others saying it wasn’t much of an apology at all.

Asked by reporters, Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee pointedly denied that the letter was an expression of apology.

See New Zealand Herald columnist Audrey Young, who called the letter a “plasticine apology.”

4. We’re excited to announce a special members-only online screening of Eyeless in Gaza on Wednesday June 21 at 11:30 a.m. EST. Following the screening, Simon Plosker, HR’s managing editor and Daniel Pomerantz, senior editor, will moderate a live Q+A on our Facebook page with filmmaker Robert Magid.

For more info and to register in advance, click here.

5. Academic Makes Up Non-Existent ‘Gaza Invasions’: Can a professor’s op-ed get away with inventing non-existent Israeli military operations?

6. Video: Al Quds Day 2017: Ever since 1979, the last Friday of Ramadan is Al Quds Day, described as a day to support Palestinians and the destruction of Israel.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Haaretz: Israel is in talks with Egypt and the European Union to resolve Gaza’s electricity crisis.

• Hamas takes stricter security measures on Gaza border with Egypt.

• A shunned documentary on European anti-Semitism finally saw the light of day — sort of. The film, “Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe,” was leaked to and posted on Bild Zeitung, Germany’s biggest newspaper,” for 24 hours.

The Times of Israel explains why the European media executives are skittish about the documentary:

Although it was approved by network editors, for the past five months it has been withheld from the public by the Franco-German public TV networks Arte, which owns its broadcasting rights.
 
One of the reasons given for the highly controversial decision to shun the movie, which was commissioned by the German public WDR network on behalf of its partner station Arte, was that it would include too much footage from Israel. The documentary also includes a segment on anti-Semitic Israel bashing, which, as the film strikingly shows, is often supported by tax-funded European NGOs.
You can watch the full video on YouTube in German — at least for now.

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

– Yoav Limor: Trying to keep the lights on in Gaza
– Ronni Shaked: Gaza is definitely Israel’s problem
– Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad: The joint effort to end Hamas
– Shifra Horn: Palestinians spurning offers of peace
– Herb Keinon: UN chief caught in the middle of tug of war over Israel
– David Collier: Boycotting Gal Gadot. Anti-Semitic, discriminatory. BDS in action
– Smadar Perry: Iran gaining foothold in the region and nearing Israeli border
– Cnaan Liphshiz: French Jew’s killing tests new Macron administration

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06122017-gaza-electricity/
Israel to Reduce Electricity to Gaza
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. Acceding to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ request, the Israeli cabinet decided to reduce electricity to Gaza by 40 percent, putting a squeeze on Hamas. A source told Haaretz:

Military commanders believe that further reductions in the electricity supply to Gaza are likely to hasten escalation in violence. However, the official said that Israeli army officials who participated in the meeting did not advise leniency toward Hamas.
2. The International Red Cross does a lot for Palestinian security prisoners, most recently facilitating an end to a recent hunger strike. Yet Hamas spit in the face of IRC by rejecting a Red Cross request for information about Israelis held in Gaza:

Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou said: “The case of Israeli soldier prisoners is in the hands of the movement and it alone takes decisions over this issue.”
 
“It will not comply with such demands from the Red Cross,” he added.
 
The ICRC had called on Hamas to respect it commitments to International Humanitarian Law in regards to its Israeli soldiers. It had demanded that the movement submit a report on their fate.
 
Head of the ICRC delegation in Israel Jacques de Maio said that regardless if the prisoners were civilians or soldiers, they are all protected by International Humanitarian Law.
Hamas holds two Israeli nationals — both civilians with mental health conditions who are thought to be alive. In 2014, Avera Mengistu, of Ethiopian descent, managed to cross a barbed wire fence into Gaza, while in 2015, Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin, somehow traversed the border.

Hamas also holds the remains of IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in separate incidents during the 2014 Gaza conflict.
missing
Hisham al-Sayed, Lt. Hadar Goldin, Sgt. Oron Shaul and Avera Mengistu

3. A New York Times report on US cyberwarfare against Islamic State also sheds new light on the intelligence President Donald Trump disclosed to Russian diplomats. Haaretz summed up the Israel-angles.

Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.
 
The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation.

4. Ignoring Israeli History Won’t Make It Go Away: Journalist botches opportunity to bring much-needed context to the issue of settlements.

5. Ignoring Israeli History Won’t Make It Go Away: An Irish commentary omits crucial — and inconvenient — historical facts explaining the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Whether you agree with the idea of settlement enclaves or not, this Haaretz report is going to raise a ruckus in the Knesset, Ramallah, Washington . . .

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior Trump administration officials that in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, Israel will seek to allow isolated settlements that won’t be annexed to its territory to remain in place as enclaves that would be under Israeli sovereignty . . .
 
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who attended the meeting with Haley, told Haaretz that Netanyahu spoke about adopting a model like the one that exists along the border area of Netherlands and Belgium, in which each country has small enclaves in the other country’s territory.
• Jerusalem Post: A PA official who beat cancer thanks to the treatment he received at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital “donated tens of thousands of shekels for the building of a recovery room in its pediatric oncology department.” Unfortunately, he can only be identified as M.

• Terror attacks in Europe are driving NATO closer to Israel, reports Haaretz.
Around the World
Kansas State Capitol Building

• Kansas lawmakers gave final approval to a bill prohibiting the state from contracting businesses that boycott Israel. The legislation now passes on to Gov. Sam Brownback, who is expected to sign the measure. According to the Wichita Eagle:
In 2016, Kansas exported $56.7 million in commodities to Israel and imported $83.7 million from Israel, according to the Kansas Department of Commerce.
• Swastika painted inside Star of David on Rio Jewish club’s wall.

• Anti-Semitic graffiti discovered at Virginia Jewish summer camp.

Commentary/Analysis
• Tweet of the day goes to Yair Rosenberg. He was responding to a Mehdi Hasan piece in The Intercept claiming that Israel launched the Six-Day War because it wanted to annex new territory, not because it was under threat.

Actually, the Israeli security cabinet transcripts from the war were declassified this June & showed Israel's gov had no idea war was coming https://t.co/eIfTuFWDcC
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) June 12, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Ben-Dror Yemini: The occupation festival
– Michael Oren: Six days that helped put Palestinians on the map
– Nadav Shragai: A familiar illusion
– Douglas Murray: When did British voters start rewarding anti-Semitism?
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): Hezbollah in the Bronx (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-SA Kamil Porembinski; cyber CC0 Pixabay; Kansas CC BY-SA Wikimedia

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06122017-gaza-electricity/
Israel to Reduce Electricity to Gaza
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. Acceding to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ request, the Israeli cabinet decided to reduce electricity to Gaza by 40 percent, putting a squeeze on Hamas. A source told Haaretz:

Military commanders believe that further reductions in the electricity supply to Gaza are likely to hasten escalation in violence. However, the official said that Israeli army officials who participated in the meeting did not advise leniency toward Hamas.
2. The International Red Cross does a lot for Palestinian security prisoners, most recently facilitating an end to a recent hunger strike. Yet Hamas spit in the face of IRC by rejecting a Red Cross request for information about Israelis held in Gaza:

Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou said: “The case of Israeli soldier prisoners is in the hands of the movement and it alone takes decisions over this issue.”
 
“It will not comply with such demands from the Red Cross,” he added.
 
The ICRC had called on Hamas to respect it commitments to International Humanitarian Law in regards to its Israeli soldiers. It had demanded that the movement submit a report on their fate.
 
Head of the ICRC delegation in Israel Jacques de Maio said that regardless if the prisoners were civilians or soldiers, they are all protected by International Humanitarian Law.
Hamas holds two Israeli nationals — both civilians with mental health conditions who are thought to be alive. In 2014, Avera Mengistu, of Ethiopian descent, managed to cross a barbed wire fence into Gaza, while in 2015, Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin, somehow traversed the border.

Hamas also holds the remains of IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in separate incidents during the 2014 Gaza conflict.
missing
Hisham al-Sayed, Lt. Hadar Goldin, Sgt. Oron Shaul and Avera Mengistu

3. A New York Times report on US cyberwarfare against Islamic State also sheds new light on the intelligence President Donald Trump disclosed to Russian diplomats. Haaretz summed up the Israel-angles.

Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.
 
The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation.

4. Ignoring Israeli History Won’t Make It Go Away: Journalist botches opportunity to bring much-needed context to the issue of settlements.

5. Ignoring Israeli History Won’t Make It Go Away: An Irish commentary omits crucial — and inconvenient — historical facts explaining the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Whether you agree with the idea of settlement enclaves or not, this Haaretz report is going to raise a ruckus in the Knesset, Ramallah, Washington . . .

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior Trump administration officials that in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, Israel will seek to allow isolated settlements that won’t be annexed to its territory to remain in place as enclaves that would be under Israeli sovereignty . . .
 
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who attended the meeting with Haley, told Haaretz that Netanyahu spoke about adopting a model like the one that exists along the border area of Netherlands and Belgium, in which each country has small enclaves in the other country’s territory.
• Jerusalem Post: A PA official who beat cancer thanks to the treatment he received at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital “donated tens of thousands of shekels for the building of a recovery room in its pediatric oncology department.” Unfortunately, he can only be identified as M.

• Terror attacks in Europe are driving NATO closer to Israel, reports Haaretz.
Around the World
Kansas State Capitol Building

• Kansas lawmakers gave final approval to a bill prohibiting the state from contracting businesses that boycott Israel. The legislation now passes on to Gov. Sam Brownback, who is expected to sign the measure. According to the Wichita Eagle:
In 2016, Kansas exported $56.7 million in commodities to Israel and imported $83.7 million from Israel, according to the Kansas Department of Commerce.
• Swastika painted inside Star of David on Rio Jewish club’s wall.

• Anti-Semitic graffiti discovered at Virginia Jewish summer camp.

Commentary/Analysis
• Tweet of the day goes to Yair Rosenberg. He was responding to a Mehdi Hasan piece in The Intercept claiming that Israel launched the Six-Day War because it wanted to annex new territory, not because it was under threat.

Actually, the Israeli security cabinet transcripts from the war were declassified this June & showed Israel's gov had no idea war was coming https://t.co/eIfTuFWDcC
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) June 12, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Ben-Dror Yemini: The occupation festival
– Michael Oren: Six days that helped put Palestinians on the map
– Nadav Shragai: A familiar illusion
– Douglas Murray: When did British voters start rewarding anti-Semitism?
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): Hezbollah in the Bronx (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-SA Kamil Porembinski; cyber CC0 Pixabay; Kansas CC BY-SA Wikimedia

http://honestreporting.com/idns-060112017-tunnel-unrwa/
Hamas Tunnel Found Under UNRWA School
Israel Daily News Stream4 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees, discovered a Hamas tunnel under two Gaza schools sharing the same premises. The Jerusalem Post writes:

In a statement, UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness said that the tunnels were discovered during construction of an extension of one of the buildings during summer vacation, when the schools were empty. The tunnel had no entry or exit points within the school.
In a sign of the times, a Saudi newspaper harshly condemned Hamas, saying the terror group endangers Gaza’s civilians:

“Hamas allocates millions of Saudi and UAE dollars in order to support Iranian-orchestrated terror.”
 
The leading Saudi newspaper drew parallels between the Islamic State and those of Hamas, stating that “there is no difference between them.”
 
The newspaper called for immediate Arab intervention in order to prevent Hamas’ exploitation of Gaza’s citizens and even “to save their lives.”
Hamas denied digging the tunnel, but did announce that its new politburo chief, Ismail Haniyeh, will lead a delegation of senior Hamas leaders to Iran.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the UNRWA to be dismantled.

“Since World War II, there have been tens of millions of refugees the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has taken care of. The Palestinians have their own separate commission, UNRWA, which has a lot of incitement against Israelis among its ranks,” the prime minister said.
UNRWA

2. What do the UK election results mean for Israel and British Jewry? The Times of Israel dives into the issue. Meanwhile, UK Jewish students told The Algemeiner they’re worried the results will bring anti-Semitic views more into the mainstream.

As it was, Jewish candidates won seats around Britain.

ARTE3. ARTE, a Franco-German TV network, is refusing to air a documentary on European anti-Semitism because — get this — they considered it too “pro-Israel.”

Turning a blind eye to Arab anti-Semitism and the anti-Zionist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign is more “politically correct.”

The European political support of anti-Semitism targeting Israel is presented in the film, including a speech by the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas who told European lawmakers that rabbis urged Israel’s government to poison Arab water supplies. The European Parliament rewarded Abbas with a standing ovation.
 
The film also shows the growth of the anti-Israel BDS campaign in Europe.
 
Anti-Semitism is traced, among others, in Germany, France, Belgium, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including that of Muslims.
 
Arte’s editors rejected the broadcast, because they argued that the film treats the central theme “only very partially” and does not correspond to the approved project.
4. Where is Judaism’s Holiest Site? No, it’s not the Western Wall — and these days, precision regarding Jerusalem’s Jewish sites matters a lot. Not, however to one newspaper. See HR managing editor Simon Plosker’s op-ed in The Times of Israel.

5. Read HR’s Six-Day War: 50th Anniversary Resource Primer: As the media continues examining the 50th anniversary of Israel’s remarkable victory in the 1967 Six-Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem, see HonestReporting’s Resource Primer marking the event. Go to News Articles, Gallery and Movie Clips to see the latest updated content.

Six Day War Primer

Israel and the Palestinians
• A Knesset committee approved a bill to cut money transfers to the PA over stipends to terrorists and their families. The Times of Israel reports that the next legislative hurdles are due to take place on Wednesday.

• A new book glorifying Palestinian terrorists is outraging Israelis as it aims to “inspire” Palestinian youth through the stories of “martyrs” from one refugee camp near Jerusalem. Israel HaYom writes:

The book, “Stories of Qalandiya’s Shahids, 1967-2017,” was published by the Qalandiya Media Center and tells the personal stories of terrorists who resided in the Jerusalem-adjacent refugee camp.
• The Economist looks at Israeli efforts to spot Palestinian lone-wolf attackers. Algorithms monitor social-media posts of Palestinians, and more, but could any of this eventually in the West?

• West Bank water theft drains Israelis and Palestinians dry as everybody points fingers at someone else.

Nir Barkat
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat

• While visiting Toronto, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat discussed dealing with terror with the National Post.
Unlike in London, for example, where last week police urged people to “Run, Hide, Tell,” in Jerusalem civilians are encouraged to “take action, to engage.” So today, fully one third of the “neutralizing” of terrorists in Jerusalem is by civilians, Barkat said.
• According to Obama administration documents seen by Haaretz, Netanyahu demanded that settlers be allowed to remain in Palestine after a future peace deal. But a trial balloon raised a bigger political storm within the prime minister’s coalition than he anticipated. As for the Palestinians, the suggestion was not rejected out of hand.

Around the World
• US authorities busted a Hezbollah plot to attack Israelis in New York and Panama.

• Bomb threats shut down three Los Angeles synagogue locations on Shabbat.

• Meanwhile, over in The Hague . . .

Abdoe Khoulani, a Muslim city council member in The Hague, slammed a group of Israeli high school students visiting the Dutch parliament, calling them “future Zionist terrorists, occupiers and those who murder children.”
• For a sense of what’s in store for next month’s historic visit to Israel by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, NDTV previews what’s on the agenda. There’s plenty to discuss: India is Israel’s largest customer of military equipment, while bilateral trade last year was “about USD 4.5 billion.”

Modi arrives in Israel on July 4.

Narendra Modi
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

• A Belgian court upheld a jail term for anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne. A two-month sentence and a fine of 9,000 Euros was handed down over anti-Semitic and racist remarks made during his 2012 show in the Belgian city of Liege.

It is unlikely Dieudonne will serve any jail time because the Belgian authorities usually do not enforce short sentences to avoid overcrowding in prison.
• Spanish police arrested a Hamas supporter accused of inciting violence against Jews.

• The European Jewish Press talked to various wonks for a sense of how new French President Emmanuel Macron will treat Israel.

• Amazon still sells ‘Free Palestine’ clothes, after Sears and Walmart stopped.

• Pass the popcorn: Ankara’s catching flak for not disbursing $20 million paid by Israel for the families of 10 Turkish nationals killed during the IDF intercept of the Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza. Hurriyet coverage.

• If you’re afraid of fake news, be even more wary of deadly fake reporters.

Six-Day War Anniversary
• Kufr Aqab is a Palestinian village that became part of the Jerusalem after the Six-Day War. But 50 years and two intifadas later, the area is outside the Israeli security barrier, in what the Los Angeles Times calls “a twilight-zone existence all its own.”

Related reading: Razing a Racket.

• The Six-Day War marks a somber anniversary for international peacekeepers. Commandant Tommy Wickham of Ireland was deployed as an unarmed military observer in the Golan Heights when he was shot and killed by a Syrian soldier. According to the Irish Independent, Comdt Wickham “was the only member of the Defence Forces to die on active service in Syria.”

• NPR discussed the war with writers A.B. Yehoshua and Raja Shehadeh. NPR also interviewed an Israeli settler and a Palestinian about how the war changed their lives.

• Arab writer Nael Eltoukhy offers some fascinating insights into the divergent Egyptian and Palestinian narratives of the Six-Day War.

• New York Times columnist Bret Stephens and author Yossi Klein Halevi discussed their personal connections to Israel and how the American Jewish community’s views on the state have been evolving since 1967.

• Here’s more Six-Day War reading:

– Yossi Klein Halevi: The astonishing Israeli concession of 1967
– Clifford May: The Six-Day War and the 50-year occupation
– Paul Bonicelli: 50 years ago, Israel saved Western civilization in the Mideast
– Ron Jontof-Hutter: ‘Never again’ forgotten within 22 years
– Lucette Lagnado: Arab countries treated their Jews horribly after the war
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Jerusalem: From destination to destiny

• Memo to Yousef Munayyer: Had Israel lost the war, there wouldn’t be any Jews left to photograph in the Mideast, and Islamic State would’ve demolished the Western Wall by now.

I don’t presume to speak for the late photographer, David Rubinger, or for the three soldiers (Haim Oshri, Dr. Yitzhak Yifat and Zion Karasenti), but considering Jordan refused to grant Jews access to the holy site for 19 years, the emotional looks on their faces certainly spoke for Israelis and Jews everywhere.

Western Wall
Paratroopers at the Western Wall

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

– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Palestinians afraid to tangle with Trump
– Ruthie Blum: Cutting Abbas down to size
– Amos Harel: Qatar crisis took US by surprise. Israel is concerned
– David Horovitz: Humiliation of May, rise of Corbyn, make gloomy news for Jerusalem
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): Gaza marks unhappy anniversary — 10 years under Hamas rule
Featured image: CC0 Pexels Barkat via YouTube/CBS News; Modi CC BY-SA Narendra Modi;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06082017-british-elections/
Britons Cast Their Votes in Snap Election
Israel Daily News Stream2 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. After weeks of politics, polls and pundits, Britons are casting their votes in today’s general election. Final surveys indicated an edge for incumbent Theresa May and her Conservative Party over Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. However, the race tightened after terror attacks in London and Manchester. Other issues included Brexit, security and government spending.

Live-blogging the election day updates are the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, and Daily Telegraph. Polls close at 10 p.m.

UK elections
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn

2. German mayor cancels BDS events due to anti-Semitism.
The events were canceled because of concerns that “a large number of the supporters of BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] hold antisemitic positions,” the municipality said in a statement sent to The Jerusalem Post.
 
“So long as it cannot be clarified that the BDS movement officially and publicly does not question Israel’s right to exist, such events cannot take place in city facilities,” Krogmann stressed.

3. Might the UN Security Council pass a resolution calling for a withdrawal of Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon? Could the mandate of UNIFIL peace monitors there be strengthened in advance of a possible Israel-Lebanon conflict? That’s what US Ambassador Nikki Haley and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The unanimously passed Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war in Lebanon specifically declared that Southern Lebanon (specifically, between the Litani River and Israeli border) be an “area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon.”

“If there is another conflict and we will have to hit missile launchers that are placed in private homes, it will be difficult for the Security Council to condemn us if the matter is brought to the Security Council now,” the official said. “We want to bring to the world’s attention, now, that Hezbollah is arming and using schools and hospitals to place launchers so that if there are victims in the future the world does not come to us with complaints.”
Fajr-5
Hezbollah’s arsenal includes Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets with a range of 75 km

Israel and the Palestinians
• Fascinating scoop by Haaretz, which obtained documents detailing how the Obama administration sought to bridge Israeli-Palestinian gaps to advance peace efforts, the eyebrow-raising language on borders that Netanyahu was willing to accept, and how everything fell apart. It certainly pokes holes in the idea that Israel and its leaders aren’t interested in peace:

But Abbas didn’t accept Obama’s framework document. He didn’t reject it, though – he simply didn’t respond . . .
 
Other American officials, as well as Israeli ones, see this episode as proof of Abbas’ inability to deliver a final peace agreement, mostly as a result of his internal political troubles.
• Both AP and Reuters look at the impact of the Qatari crisis on Hamas. A lot of people argue, with validity, that when Hamas is cornered, it launches rockets at Israel to draw it into war. But one analyst’s observation to Reuters is worth pondering:

Equally, he said, Hamas is unlikely openly to kick up a fuss so as not to compound the pressure Qatar is under.
 
“Hamas feels it owes Qatar gratitude because of its political and financial support all these years,” he said.
• Arab Israeli brothers charged in Hamas plot to murder Israeli military officer.

• PA President Mahmoud Abbas will put aside settlement halt for peace talks, aide says. Let’s wait and see.

• Palestinian Media Watch: Jibril Rajoub lies to Palestinians: “I did not mention the word sovereignty” re. the Western Wall

• Proof that activists need their morning coffee too. Don’t you hate it when this happens?

Ynet

• Hamas bomb expert who survived three Israeli assassination attempts killed in Gaza blast.

• Israel is stepping up its efforts with Egypt against Islamic State in the Sinai as the jihadis wage ‘war’ for control of the Egyptian border. Here’s a by the numbers look based on IDF figures shared with the Washington Free Beacon:

1,000-2,000: “active members of ISIS” operating in the Sinai region
5-7: terror attacks per week
10: weekly casualties from ISIS attacks

ISIS Sinai
Islamic State gunmen in the Sinai

Commentary/Analysis
• Veteran journalist Matti Friedman weighs in on what the AP’s collaboration with Nazi Germany should teach us about reporting the news. It all boils down to a galling lack of media transparency and more recent examples of editorial compromises made for the sake of access in places like Gaza and North Korea.

Western news organizations that maintain a presence in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, make compromises in return for access and almost never tell readers what those compromises are. The result, in many cases, is something worse than no coverage—it’s something that looks like coverage, but is actually misinformation, giving people the illusion that they know what’s going on instead of telling them outright that they’re getting information shaped by regimes trying to mislead them.
Friedman’s observations bring to mind CNN executive Eason Jordan’s extraordinary mea culpa about the dangerous trade-offs the network made in Iraq with Sadddam Hussein — written only after dictator’s downfall, of course.

• The Six-Day War commentaries continue . . .

– Ronen Bergman: How the KGB started the war that changed the Mideast
– Stephen Daisley: When will the Six-Day War finally end?

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

– Avi Issacharoff: Will the Saudi-Qatar clash push Hamas into a dangerous corner?
– MK Ksenia Svetlova: Looking for a new equation in Gaza
– Prof. William Jacobson: Justice for Rasmea
– Prof. Alex Mintz: Why is Nasrallah threatening Israel again?
– David Pollock: Palestinians not as hostile to Trump’s posture as Americans assume
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinian crocodile tears and terrorism

Featured image: CC BY Eric Chan; May and Corbyn via YouTube/Channel 4 News; UK flag CC0 Pixabay; Fajr-5 CC BY-SA Linthias12; Sinai via YouTube/Rick UK;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06072017-isis-tehran/
Islamic State Claims Twin Terror Attacks in Tehran
Israel Daily News Stream9 hours ago
1
Today’s Top Stories
1. Islamic State claimed credit for twin terror attacks in Tehran as gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Iran’s parliament building, taking hostages, and also the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Iranian Revolution.

According to Iranian reports cited by the Western media, at least 12 people were killed and 39 people injured in the two attacks. Parliament was in session at the time; the siege there lasted about three hours. Iranian officials said a third attack was thwarted without elaborating.

So far, news services like CNN, BBC and wire services stress that the casualty figures haven’t been independently verified or if the number of dead included any of the terrorists.

If confirmed, this would be Islamic State’s first attack in Iran. It’ll be interesting to see if Tel Aviv city hall lights up in solidarity with Tehran like it has for Manchester, Orlando, Egypt, Russia, etc.


2. As the Qatari crisis escalated, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir demanded Qatar end its support of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jubeir added that Qatar was undermining the Palestinian Authority and Egypt in its support of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
“We don’t think this is good. Qatar has to stop these policies so that it can contribute to stability in the Middle East,” he said.
The crisis widened as Jordan, Mauritius, Mauritania, Yemen the Maldives and one of Libya’s three rival governments cut or scaled down relations with Qatar.

3. Will Qatar sacrifice Al Jazeera? CNN, BBC and UAE-based columnist Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi have me going hmmmmm.

Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel may deduct ‘martyr’ payments from funds it transfers to the PA each month, the Times of Israel reports:

The bill, which is on the agenda for Sunday’s meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, would see Israel cut around NIS 1 billion ($285 million) from the tax revenues it collects for the Palestinians and hands over to them — equivalent to the amount that Ramallah pays to terrorists and their families.
• Jordan is considering banning Wonder Woman, with critics emphasizing lead actress Gal Gadot’s previous service in the IDF. Unlike Lebanon, however, Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. Ynet coverage.

• If these jokers had murdered Israelis, they’d be set for life.

• US Ambassador Nikki Haley arrived in Israel for a three visit. Today, she met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, and called the UN a “bully.”

• Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn is visiting Israel. Africa News reports that one particular agenda item in Desalegn’s talks with Israeli leaders was his role in helping Israel obtain observer status in the African Union.

Desalegn also met with Israel’s Ethiopian community, and toured Jerusalem’s Old City — including the Western Wall, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.


• Palestinians passed up chance to debate Israelis at International Criminal Court’s moot court competition in The Hague, reports the Times of Israel. A team from Birzeit University withdrew rather than debate a team from Hebrew University. The Hebrew U. team eventually finished the competition in ninth place.

“This was in line with the university’s commitment toward the Boycott and Divestment Sanctions Campaign (BDS),” Birzeit said in the press release, which was posted on the university’s website but later made unavailable.
• The Media Line takes a closer look at anti-Israel rhetoric coming out of Jordan.

• Ethiopian immigrants arrived in Israel after an eight-month break in airlifts. The Times of Israel was on hand for some emotional family reunions at Ben Gurion Airport. Airlifts have been stymied by politics, bureaucracy and budget constraints

There are approximately 9,000 Jews in Ethiopia with family in Israel who are waiting to emigrate.

• Amnesty International‘s marking the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War with a call to Britain to ban imports of goods produced in Israeli settlements. The Independent led the cheerleading.

• Restaurants in the Jordanian city of Aqaba are refusing to serve Israeli vacationers.

Around the World
• Sears department store to pull ‘Free Palestine’ clothing from site amid complaints:

“These items were being sold by a third-party seller via the Sears Marketplace,” said the statement, which was sent to JTA Tuesday afternoon. “Given the feedback we’ve received, they are being removed.”
 
The statement added that Sears felt it had been “unfairly singled out on this issue,” as similar items are available for purchase from other companies, such as Amazon and Walmart.
• Accusations of anti-Semitism fly as election poster gives Theresa May shiny Star of David earrings.

• Jewish Chronicle: A 16-year-old Jewish girl beaten up by a gang of youths shouting anti-Semitic epithets was then left bleeding in an Edgware park for hours when police failed to respond.

• British police are treating arson attacks on two kosher restaurants in Manchester as ‘antisemitic hate crimes’

Commentary/Analysis
• In a pair of meaty interviews, the Fathom Journal discussed the Six Day War with Michael Oren and Nidal Foqaha.

• Plenty of commentary examining the Six Day War from various angles . . .

– Yossi Klein Halevi: Still stuck between May and June of 1967
– Tamara Coffman Wittes: How the Six-Day War led to the Arab Spring
– Yohanan Plesner: How Israeli society has changed since the Six Day War
– Michael Oren: How the was safeguarded Israel as Mideast’s democratic anchor
– Lela Gilbert: Remembering a time of miracles
– Sara Yael Hirschhorn: Before the war, these American Jews were leftists — now, they’re Israeli settlers
– Yedidia Stern: How the Six-Day War built a messianic strain still in Israeli politics
– Shibley Telhami: The 1967 war’s effects on Palestinians still reverberate


paratroopers

 

– Father Raymond de Souza: The Six Days War shaped 50 years of history
– Michael Mandelbaum: 1967’s gift to America
– Hisham Melhem: The Arab world has never recovered from the loss of 1967
– Ghassan Charbel: Ambassadors of the dark
– Dr. Gabriel Glickman: Rewriting the Six-Day War
– Greg Myre: 50 years on, US presidents still seek elusive peace to 6-Day War
– Seth Mandel: The literary left’s anti-celebration of Jerusalem’s liberation
– Jeff Jacoby: Israel’s victory in Six-Day War astonished the world

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

– Amos Harel: As Qatar crisis backs Hamas into a corner, Israel fears another round of violence in Gaza
– Ron Kampeas: Arab countries are turning on Qatar. What does it mean for Israel?
– Gil Troy: Ambassador Haley, the modern Moynihan
– Alan Dershowitz: A new tolerance for anti-Semitism
– Avi Benlolo: Canada must follow Europe’s example and do more to combat anti-Semitism

Featured image: CC BY-NC Roland Scheerer;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06062017-qatar-fallout/
Qatar Crisis: The Implications for Israel
Israel Daily News Stream7 hours ago

Today’s Top Stories
1. With the Mideast shaken up by Egypt and the Gulf states severing ties with Qatar over its sponsorship of terror groups, Israeli officials see opportunities, assess that Qatar’s dalliance with pro-Iran groups made the crisis overdue, and said the developments are very very bad for Hamas.

With Qatar’s only land border with Saudi Arabia now shut, Qataris rushed supermarkets, emptying shelves of food. The crisis is already squeezing Qatar’s economy, air travel, and even the 2022 World Cup.

Experts say a prolonged crisis will push Qatar closer to Turkey and Iran. Turkey and Kuwait have offered to mediate.

Doha
Doha, Qatar


2. A riot broke out in the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Kasim on Monday night when a 27-year-old man, Mohammed Taha, resisted arrest. As the violence escalated, Taha was shot by a private security guard who feared for his life. The Jerusalem Post writes:

According to a police statement, the riot began when police attempted to detain a driver from the city when it was discovered during a routine permit check that he was wanted for interrogation by security forces. The statement said that as police attempted to take the driver in for questioning, about fifty residents, some of them masked, arrived on the scene and began pelting the police car with rocks and then proceeded to attack the station, setting fire to three police vehicles . . .
 
The police is on high alert ahead of the funeral for Taha, which is scheduled to take place Tuesday afternoon, fearing further breakout of violence.
More on the incident and its fallout at the Times of Israel.

Amb. Nikki Haley
Amb. Nikki Haley addressing the UN Human Rights Council on June 6, 2017.

3. Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, US Ambassador Nikki Haley denounced its overwhelming focus on Israel to the detriment of abuses elsewhere in the world. See the video.

Criticizing the UNHRC for failing to issue resolutions against Venezuela for its many violations of human rights, saying that the South American country “should step down from its seat on the human rights council until it can get its own house in order.”
 
She then reprimanded the international body for instead issuing 5 resolutions against Israel since March. “It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it wants to maintain its credibility,” she said.

4. Journalist Shills For Palestinians; Slams Israel, Omits Basic Facts: Presenting one agenda-driven side to a complex story isn’t journalism.

Israel and the Palestinians
• While everyone was preoccupied with the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, the Associated Press takes note of a different anniversary: It’s been a decade since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.

This isn’t about deriving pleasure from the misfortune of Gaza but AP’s grim picture of what the Strip has come to in the last decade. We’re talking about 60 percent youth unemployment, unprecedented daily shortages of water and electricity, clampdowns on freedom of expression and financial pressures.

• Forty-seven Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank say they got their salaries after fearing a cutoff from PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The PA said the delay in payment was due to a technical error. This followed reports that Abbas suspended stipends to Hamas terrorists released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner swap.
money
• Jerusalem Post: Israel and New Zealand are likely to restore full diplomatic relations. Israel recalled its ambassador to Wellington after New Zealand co-sponsored the contentious UN Security Council resolution 2334, which denounced settlements.

Just earlier this week, Israel and Senegal — another co-sponsor of that resolution — announced they were also restoring full diplomatic relations.

• A Palestinian terrorist who returned to Israel after 34 years was immediately jailed, tsk.

• UN human rights chief decries Israeli occupation and Holocaust in same speech.

• A California judge ruled that the 2014 Gaza conflict also known as Operation Protective Edge can be legally classified as a “war.” The Jerusalem Post notes 6.9 million reasons why the designation matters to everyone involved in the production of Dig, a TV series set in Israel.

The TV series, which was canceled after one season, was shot, at least partly, in Israel in June 2014. As tensions began to heighten in what would eventually become a deadly, 50-day ground operation, the production crew decided to leave Israel and finish filming in Croatia and New Mexico.
 
NBCUniversal, USA’s parent company, filed a $6.9 million insurance claim with its Atlantic Insurance Company to cover the unexpected costs. The show’s policy offered full coverage in case of terrorism, but not in the case of war. NBC argued that the crew was forced to relocate due to Hamas terrorism, while Atlantic said it was a war, though the Israeli government never declared it as such.
• The Jerusalem Post calls out the Sears department store for peddling a variety of ‘Free Palestine’ t-shirts. This one depicts Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. If that ever happens, will the store’s Israel t-shirts become collector’s items

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

– Haviv Rettig Gur: Why peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians keep failing
– Uri Dromi: 50 years after the Six-Day War, Israel should pull out of most of the West Bank
– Peter Wertheim: Arabs always rejected idea of a home for Jews, and still do
– Pinhas Inbari: Did Jibril Rajoub say that the Kotel should be under Jewish control?
– Jonathan Tobin: The Left’s Abbas problem
– Martin Kramer: The forgotten truth about the Balfour Declaration
– Herb Keinon: 5 reasons Israelis should care about improving ties with Africa
– Tony Badran: Distinction between Hezbollah and the “Lebanese State” now meaningless
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Holding Qatar accountable

• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Hanan Ashawi.

Featured image: CC BY Joe Shlabotnik; Doha CC BY-NC marc.desbordes; Haley via YouTube/Ruptly TV; money CC BY-NC-SA Numonica stevens;

http://honestreporting.com/idns-06052017-qatar-ties/
Gulf States Sever Ties With Qatar Over Terror Support
Israel Daily News Stream3 hours ago
Today’s Top Stories
1. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates severed ties with Qatar over the Gulf state’s continued support for terror groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State and Al Qaida.

Transport ties were cut, Qatar was expelled from the Saudi-led coalition of forces fighting in Yemen, while Qatari nationals were given two weeks to leave the Gulf states. And soccer fans take note:

Kristian Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the U.S-based Baker Institute, said if Qatar’s land borders and air space were closed for any length of time “it would wreak havoc on the timeline and delivery” of the World Cup.
Meanwhile, Seth Frantzman lists 5 reasons Israel should care about the Qatar crisis.


2. Here are a few takeaways from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Liberia, where he met with leaders of 10 West African nations at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit, where he also delivered the keynote speech.

– Israel to open two trading hubs in West and East Africa
– Israel and Senegal mended fences after last year’s UN resolution spat
– Nigeria, other ECOWAS countries to benefit from Israel’s $1 billion solar project
– Energiya Global of Israel to invest $20M in Liberia’s energy sector

And what’s Israel after? Netanyahu summed it up in his keynote address:

“Israel should once again be an observer state of the African Union … I fervently believe that it’s in your interest too, in the interest of Africa. And I hope all of you will support that goal,” Netanyahu told West African leaders at the 51st ECOWAS Summit of Heads of State in Liberia’s capital Monrovia on Sunday.
 
“I ask for your support in rejecting anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, and in bodies such as the General Assembly, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council,” he appealed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) conference in Liberia.

3. This is as good a start as we can hope for — for now. I wonder if Fatah-aligned terrorists will get the same treatment. According to the Associated Press:

Abdelrahman Shadid, who runs a Hamas-linked prisoner advocacy group in Gaza, said dozens of ex-prisoners from Hamas had not received their salaries as scheduled.
 
“The prisoners went to the banks today and found no salaries in their accounts,” he said. “We are waiting to hear from the bank officially tomorrow to see if this is a salary stop.”
 
Shadid said those affected had been released in 2011 when Hamas traded an Israeli soldier for more than 1,000 prisoners held by Israel. Among those who didn’t receive their stipends was only one from Fatah, and the rest were from Hamas, said Shadid.
4. It Only Sounds Absurd When It’s Not About Israel: Imagine the outrage if headlines about the Manchester terror attack followed the pattern of headlines about Palestinian terror

paroduy
Israel and the Palestinians
• Palestinian sources confirmed to Haaretz that a number of top Hamas officials left Qatar, “splitting up and moving to a number of countries, including Lebanon, Malaysia and Turkey.”

• Five Palestinian members of a Hamas-linked terror group were arrested in eastern Jerusalem on suspicion of planning attacks at the Temple Mount on visitors and security personnel.

• The UNRWA, which provides for Palestinian refugees, apologized for using a photo of a Syrian girl to raise money. The fauxtography was first spotted by UN Watch.

• It’s not clear how many Palestinian refugees are in Greece, but Haaretz finds the Europeans don’t treat them as well as the Syrians. Some fled from Syrian refugee camps, others from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Germany’s the preferred destination because, among other reasons, its thought that there are more possibilities of steady work. But here’s the rub:

“The Germans are willing to grant this kind of residency to Syrian refugees because they have a homeland they’ll return to when the war in Syria is over. We Palestinians don’t have a homeland and the Germans are afraid we’ll stay in Germany forever.”
• The Times of Israel reports good news and bad news from Gaza. The good news? Hamas isn’t interested in war with Israel and is clamping down hard on jihadists planning rocket and terror attacks, while Israel hasn’t reduced electricity to the Strip.The bad news is that Hamas terror commander Muhammad Deif has built up an army of 27,000 people and invested a lot of money in Gaza’s tunnel infrastructure.

• Gaza dating site matches widows to men seeking 2nd (or 3rd) wife

• As the Syrian civil war raises tensions for Israelis living in the Golan, The New Statesman visits the heights to measure the mood.
UN Human Rights Council• With the US poised to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council over the role of human rights abusers and the council’s disproportionate scrutiny of Israel, NGOs are trying to convince the Trump administration to remain engaged. Their logic in a letter seen by Reuters:

Eight groups, including Freedom House and the Jacob Blaustein Institute, wrote to Haley in May saying a withdrawal would be counterproductive since it could lead to the Council “unfairly targeting Israel to an even greater degree.”
Commentary/Analysis
• In an eye-opening Wall St. Journal op-ed (click via Twitter), Asher Orkaby explains how 1967 Israeli fears of an Egyptian chemical attack played a part in the decision to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Egyptian Air Force — which was dropping chemical weapons in Yemen. Today, Israel has to take into account Syrian chemical weapons.

There is a clear parallel to the current conflict in Syria. What made the 1960s crisis in Yemen so dangerous was that the international community did not respond to Egypt’s use of chemical weapons. The Yemeni civil war was waved off as merely an intra-Arab conflict. Without visible international assurances that chemical warfare would not be tolerated, Israel in 1967 felt compelled to eliminate the threat before it arrived.
 
In the barrage of Tomahawk missiles President Trump launched against Syria in April, the U.S. provided some response to the latest chemical attack. Failure to follow up this show of force with collective international action—making clear to Israel that further chemical warfare is off the table—may push the Middle East toward another destructive regional war.

• Plenty of reading material looking back on the Six Day War to sink your teeth into.

– Michael Oren: Israel’s 1967 victory is something to celebrate
– Stephen Pollard: The Six-Day War turned Middle-East politics upside down – and it still dominates today
– Zalman Shoval: Our war of defense
– Aviva Klompas: 50 years on, settlements are not the problem
– Fred Maroun: As an Arab, I am embarrassed by the Six-Day War
– Bernard Avishai: How the Six-Day War changed Israel’s mind
– Gershom Gorenberg: How occupation has damaged Israel’s democracy
– Hirsh Goodman: I fought for a better Israel than this
– Ben-Dror Yemini: The truth about the occupation

An Israeli gunboat passing through the Straits of Tiran during the Six-Day War
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Herb Keinon: Israel will need to fulfill expectations it is sowing in Africa
– Alex Fishman: Gaza sewage penetrates Israel
– Amb. Ron Prosor: There’s still time to avert war in Lebanon (click via Twitter)
– Matthew Kalman: The Israeli schoolkids who talk their way into enemy countries
– Ron Jontof-Hutter: BDS, back to front
– Manfred Gerstenfeld: The structural uneasiness of French Jews
– Emily Bell: Facebook’s moderation is of public interest and should be public knowledge
– Dr. Edy Cohen: The Farhoud remembered
– Daniel Pipes: The paradoxical peril of easy US-Israel relations (click via Twitter)

Featured image: CC0 Pexels; Netanyahu via Facebook/The Prime Minister of Israel;