Today’s Top Stories
1. A few papers picked up on Breaking the Silence’s 240 page collection of soldiers’ testimonies about last year’s Gaza war. But not complaining to superiors about ethical issues — rather anonymously slinging mud about unverifiable incidents — breaks credibility, not silence. This Washington Post snippet aptly sums up what you need to know.
The Israeli Defense Forces spokesman declined to respond to details in the report, saying Breaking the Silence refuses share information with the IDF “in a manner which would allow a proper response, and if required, investigation,” and ” indicates that contrary to their claims this organization does not act with the intention of correcting any wrongdoings they allegedly uncovered.”
The soldiers who testified received guarantees of anonymity from Breaking the Silence.
Aside from the International Business Times, which got a fresh quote from the IDF, I didn’t see much skepticism in other papers. The testimonies served as today’s unquestioned affirmation of Israeli guilt in The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, The Independent (links one and two), Financial Times (click via Google News), and the London Review of Books (by radical left-wing Israeli Professor Neve Gordon).
2. YNet: In the face of BDS pressure on social media, Lauryn Hill, the American R&B and hip hop singer, is seriously considering cancelling an upcoming Israel concert. Hill is scheduled to perform in Rishon Lezion this week:
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement has been urging Hill to boycott Israel for the past month. Last week, pro-Palestinian activists posted a video edited to the sounds Hill’s performance of “Killing me Softly” as part of her former band The Fugees, which shows her alongside IDF soldiers in the territories and compares Israel to an apartheid state.
3. Memo to the Gaza Salafists tortured by Hamas: The world’s only outraged when Israel is accused of torturing you. Unfortunately, raising awareness of human rights violations by Hamas or the PA ruins longstanding narratives of Israel as Public Enemy No. 1, as Khaled Abu Toameh points out.
4. “Might Have Been Better Worded”: The BBC offers the weakest excuse for botched journalism.
5. Correcting the Record: Tel Aviv Is Not Israel’s Capital: When Sky News labeled Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, HonestReporting stepped in.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Security guards shot a suspected Palestinian terrorist at a Jerusalem’s light rail today. YNet coverage.
• Two UN peacekeepers in the Golan were injured by Syrian mortars today. The Jerusalem Post reports that the IDF believes the shells were errant fire from Syrian civil war fighting.
• From the Times of Israel:
The mortar round that killed four-year-old Daniel Tragerman on the second to last day of the war in and around Gaza last summer was fired from a United Nations installation, Lt. Gen. (res) Benny Gantz, the commander of the army during the 50-day war, said on Monday.
• Worth watching: Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes looked at the effects of the Gaza war on Israeli and Palestinian children.
Around the World
• The body of Or Asraf was extracted from a Nepalese mountainside by a search and rescue team accompanied by Asraf’s army buddies. See Israel HaYom coverage.
• Iran stepping up covert activities in Latin America?
• Dallas police killed two gunmen who opened fire on a controversial Mohammed art conference. A security guard was injured. More at the Dallas Morning News.
• The Times of Israel notes an Israeli angle to the big question of what name will be given to Prince William and Princess Kate’s new daughter. Alice is popular among British bookies, and would stir Israeli interest too.
The newborn’s great-great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is buried in Jerusalem, and was recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial as a “Righteous Among the Nations” and by the British government as a “Hero of the Holocaust.”
During the Nazi occupation of Greece, Alice hid a Jewish woman and two of her children from the Nazis.
No name was announced when this roundup was published.
Commentary/Analysis
• It’s in Israel’s interest to just let Gaza collapse on Hamas. There’s no other way to dislodge it from power, argues Danny Rubinstein.
• More of today’s commentary:
– Alex Fishman: Israel’s up to its neck in Syria
– Michael Curtis: UN guilt and Hamas war crimes
– Jonathan Marks: When students vote on Israel’s demise
– Gary Rosenblatt: Israel, the canary in the coal mine
– Reuven Berko: Noose tightens around Bashar Assad
Featured image: CC BY-NC flickr/European Journalism Observatory with additions by HonestReporting; Hill CC BY flickr/The Come Up Show; royal family via YouTube/CNN; Princess Alice via Wikimedia Commons;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
