Today’s Top Stories
1. Are the Saudis purchasing Israeli drones through South Africa?
2. Egypt reportedly destroyed a 3 km-long Hamas tunnel containing mortars, engineering equipment, and generators. YNet notes why the discovery’s timing came at a very awkward time for Hamas:
This tunnel was found as an additional round of talks between a Hamas delegation to Cairo and the Egyptian general intelligence were being held.
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3. A major Vienna-based bank is facing calls to shut down the account of BDS Austria. Officials at the Erste Group bank aren’t saying much, but the Jerusalem Post reports that anti-BDS legislation elsewhere may force the bank’s hand:
New York State’s proposed anti-BDS legislation could impact Erste Group, which has its US headquarters in New York City. The state senate is working with the state assembly to pass a robust law that would penalize companies aiding BDS. Nearly 50 US states have passed anti-BDS measures.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Once again, Palestinians have named a sports tournament after a terrorist. A Ramallah-area school named a girls’ basketball tournament after Dalal Mughrabi, who led an attack known as the Coastal Road massacre in which 38 people (including 13 children) were killed.
• Palestinian incitement on the rise as Passover holiday approaches. YNet reports its part of a Palestinian trend. See also Reuven Berko‘s take.
Every year, there is an uptick in Palestinian incitement leading up to the High Holidays and Passover. This is what happened before last Rosh Hashanah – and this led to violent confrontations at the Temple Mount, followed by an escalation of violence in the West Bank. The videos and messages released in recent weeks point to a gradual resumption of Palestinian incitement, after a time in which it has subsided in recent months. This incitement is a calculated to arouse tensions with the goal of reaching a peak next month during Passover.
• US slams UN bid to blacklist companies working with settlements.
• Say it ain’t so, Hamas!
Three prominent members of Hamas's armed wing flee Gaza to join ISIS.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) March 29, 2016
• Reuters reports a sharp rise in child labor in Gaza.
In the past five years, the number of working children between the ages of 10 and 17 has doubled to 9,700 in the territory, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics.
The bureau said 2,900 of those children are below the legal employment age of 15. Economists in the narrow coastal strip, home to 1.9 million Palestinians, estimate the real number of underage workers could be twice as high.
• Human rights groups are calling on France to investigate the IDF shooting in Hebron for “war crimes” because Le Monde revealed that soldier, identified only as A., has dual Israeli-French citizenship. More on that Newsweek. The soldier has been charged with murder.
Around the World
• A Belgian hotline operator told a Jewish caller that Israel doesn’t exist. The JTA and European Jewish Press explain the story of this recording in Flemish posted on Joods Actueel, a Belgian Jewish monthly.
• A letter signed by 35 New York state legislators is demanding that the City University of New York (CUNY) suspend the campus activities of Students for Justice in Palestine because of “several incidents that have left many Jews feeling fearful and intimidated.”
• The deputy mayor of the French town of Nogent-sur-Oise claimed on Facebook that Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ staunch support for Israel and opposition to anti-Semitism stems from the influence of his Jewish wife, Anne Gravoin.
Commentary/Analysis
• Does Peter Baker of the New York Times Have a Diaa Hadid Problem?
• Tweet of the day, from Eugene Kontorovich:
If Ban-Ki moon is wrong/politicized about Western Sahara, what makes anyone think he'd be right about Israel? https://t.co/w2rsnjWeKb
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) March 29, 2016
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Emma Barnett: Mossad’s hiring of a Nazi killer can teach us how to deal with Isil
– Zalman Shoval: Europe must wake up
– Eran Lerman: Israel and Europe after Brussels
– Anne Bayefsky: UN names democratic Israel as world’s top human rights violator
– Los Angeles Times: Striking a balance between free speech vs. bigotry on campus
– Charles Johnson: When faraway tragedies are ignored, it’s not always the media’s fault
Featured image: CC BY-SA Estitxu Carton via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; euros CC BY Images Money;
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