Today’s Top Stories
1. Fatah cadres met with Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to discuss responses to US President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem declaration. A Fatah spokesman told The Media Line the delegation met with other Lebanese leaders, and that Fatah remains committed to non-violent resistance. But that’s not how Nasrallah characterized the contact in an interview with a pro-Hezbollah paper:
In the Al Mayadeen interview, Nasrallah also alleged that the Iranian regime financed the recent wave of Palestinian protests against Trump’s Jerusalem declaration. He stressed that Hizbullah is keen to work towards establishing a “point of unity” with the Palestinians and confirmed that Jerusalem was the focus of his meeting with officials.
“We will not hesitate to seize any opportunity to provide support and weapons to the resistance in Palestine,” Nasrallah declared.
2. The Ministry of Strategic Affairs released a list of organizations from North and South America, Europe and South Africa whose members will be barred from Israel because of their support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Among the more well-known blacklisted groups are Code Pink, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. More at the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. All signs point to Turkey setting up an unwelcome Red Sea naval base after Ankara signed a deal with Sudan to “transfer the island of Suakin in the Red Sea to Turkey to rebuild and administer for an undefined period of time.” Israeli and Egyptian officials can’t be pleased.
4. NPR Buries the Facts: In an article about Palestinian in Jerusalem, NPR buries or even leaves out critical facts.
Israel and the Palestinians
• In Cairo, government officials leaned on several influential Egyptian talk show hosts not to condemn Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, the New York Times reports. Now that Israel and Egypt face common foes in Iran and the Islamic Brotherhood/Hamas, the regime of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi doth not protest too much. (Egypt denies the report.)
But strife with Israel was not in Egypt’s national interest, Captain Kholi said. He told the hosts that instead of condemning the decision, they should persuade their viewers to accept it. Palestinians, he suggested, should content themselves with the dreary West Bank town that currently houses the Palestinian Authority, Ramallah.
“How is Jerusalem different from Ramallah, really?” Captain Kholi asked repeatedly in four audio recordings of his telephone calls obtained by The New York Times.
“Exactly that,” agreed one host, Azmi Megahed, who confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
• Arab League to lobby UN to recognize Palestinian state. And Ynet reports the Palestinians will seek full statehood from the UN even though the request will never a US veto.
• If Hamas passed a contentious “Muezzin Bill” for Gaza, would the media say they’re silencing religious expression like when Israel’s Knesset mulled such legislation? Gazans are irked by early-morning calls to prayer.
• The web site of “In Between” bills Israeli-Arab Maysaloun Hamoud’s first film as a story of “three strong and independent-minded Israeli-Palestinian women who share an apartment in Tel Aviv.” But writing in Vulture (New York Magazine’s culture section), Lebanese-born writer Shirine Saad describes the movie as “a candid story about women in Palestine,” obfuscates Israeli government funding, and muddies the waters of Hamoud’s identity, describing her as a Palestinian.
This is a good movie. Too bad @shirinesaad writes around Israel's involvement in a way that could only be intentional. The director is an Israeli citizen, and it implies the Palestinian Authority funded the film, when, in fact, it got funding from Israel. https://t.co/pFFoUDMAmA
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 7, 2018
• A by the numbers look at Israel’s fight against terror 2017, based on figures from the IDF and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) picked up the by the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel and Ynet. See those sites for comparisons to previous years.
> 99: terror attacks
> 20: Israelis killed
> 169: Israelis wounded
> 42: illegal West Bank weapons workshops shut down
> 455: illegal weapons seized in West Bank
> some 1,100: lone wolf attacks foiled
> NIS 10 million: seized money suspected of being meant to fund terror ($2.9 million)
> 35: rockets fired at Israel from Gaza
> 59: retaliatory strikes on Gaza following rocket fire
> 3,617: Palestinians arrested in 2017 according to the IDF
> 6,742: Palestinians arrested in 2017 according to NGOs
> 7: Palestinian homes demolished by Israel as punishment for a family member committing a terror attack
> 98: Palestinian homes demolished by Israel for not being built without proper permits
• It says a lot about The Guardian that it’s the paper of choice for group letters supporting BDS — in this case, more than a 100 writers, singers, musicians, etc. (mostly the usual suspects) showing solidarity with Lorde.
• Tweet of the day from Diaa Hadid, who used to cover Israel, Gaza and the West Bank for the New York Times.
Hamas used to threaten reporters who wrote about Isis in Gaza, myself included. https://t.co/6ngMZ2fFrR
— Diaa Hadid ضياء حديد (@diaahadid) January 4, 2018
Around the World
• By 2040, Muslims will outnumber Jews in the US, according to a Pew Research Center poll picked up by the Times of Israel.
Muslims in the U.S. are not as numerous as the number of Americans who identify as Jewish by religion, according to our estimate. At the same time, our projections suggest that the U.S. Muslim population will grow much faster than the country’s Jewish population. By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians.
• Legal battle heats up over Fordham U. decision to ban ‘Students for Justice in Palestine.’
• Israeli ambassador: Sweden has failed to protect its Jewish community.
• Fans unfollow Dutch actress for vacationing in Israel. But she asked for it.
Victoria Koblenko, an award-winning movie, television and theater actress and journalist with 151,000 followers on Instagram, invited others to unfollow her as well on the social network, saying in a Jan. 3 post from the Old City of Jerusalem that she has no interest in the attention of people who “assume something about my political inclination based on my holiday destination.”
Commentary
• With all due respect to Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III: There’s no Israeli threat to any holy places or to Christian control of their sites, and besides, it’s no crime for Jews to buy property in Jerusalem.
Christians are panicked because the church itself is selling land to God knows who, which is why protesters in Bethlehem threw eggs and shoes at Theophilis III as he arrived at the Church of the Nativity on Saturday to celebrate Christmas — which the Greek Orthodox calendar celebrates in January.
Today is the Orthodox Christmas, and hundreds of Palestinians in Bethlehem attacked the motocade of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III,calling him a 'traitor' for selling church lands to Israelis. Palestinian security handled it. https://t.co/a0LWCiv03J
— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) January 6, 2018
• Here’s a recipe for a nasty New York Times staff-ed headline. Ingredients: half-cup of “All-Trump’s-Fault,” half-cup of “Blame the Likud Central Committee,” a pinch of lip service to Palestinian intransigence (to taste). Mix all ingredients well, add hot air and place in preheated oven at 175° C. Remove when half-baked.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Orly Azoulay: How Trump embarrassed Israel with anti-Palestinian tweet
– Jonathan Tobin: Threatening to cut Palestinian aid is the right move
– Noga Tarnopolsky: The time-bomb in Trump’s threat to Palestinian funding
– Nadav Shragai: UNRWA – the great refugee charade
– Yossi Beilin: Jerusalem remains on the agenda
– Los Angeles Times (staff-ed): Trump bungles his quest for the ‘ultimate deal’ in the Middle East
– Ron Ben-Yishai: The creative score-settling that may lead to Gaza war
– Nigel Woodley: In support of the State of Israel
– Amos Harel: Even if Iran protests are modestly successful, Israel would benefit
– Bret Stephens: Finding the way forward on Iran
– Ely Karmon: Iran protests could evolve into ethnic/sectarian strife
– Amir Taheri: Behind the latest protests in Iran
– Daniella Cohen: The rise of fake news in the Mideast and beyond
– Jay Rosen: Show your work: The new terms for trust in journalism
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Jason Kuffer; Nasrallah via YouTube/RT; Victoria Koblenko via Instagram/vkoblenko;
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