Today’s Top Stories
1. On his first day in Riyadh, President Donald Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The sale is being made with an eye towards the creation of an ‘Arab NATO,’ a military alliance of Sunni Arab states to counter-balance threats from Iran and Islamic State.
However, officials in Jerusalem telling Israeli media that they’re concerned for Israel’s qualitative military edge and that Israel wasn’t consulted. More on that at Ynet and the Times of Israel.
The deal includes tanks and helicopters for border security, ships for coastal security, intelligence-gathering aircraft, a missile-defense radar system and cybersecurity tools, according to the State Department.
For comparison, the memorandum of understanding governing the next decade of US military assistance to Israel — which was signed last year — is worth $38 billion.
2. Saudi Arabia denied a visa to an Israeli journalist in the White House press corps. Orly Azoulay, Yediot Aharonot’s Washington bureau chief won’t be able to cover the Riyadh portion of Trump’s first trip abroad as President. Azoulay tweeted and told The Algemeiner that the Saudis didn’t just snub her but the White House as well:
“It is a snub for the president,” Azoulay said. “I was part of the formal travel press, and that means that the Saudis could select who is coming with the president of the United States. In the past I traveled to Saudi Arabia three times…They were ready to issue me a visa then. But now, maybe they want to send some signal to the White House and the president.” . . .
Azoulay was not the only Israeli member of the press denied a visa by Saudi Arabia, where Trump will arrive on Saturday. Gil Tamary of Israel’s Channel 10, and Dan Raviv, an American-born reporter in Washington for the Israel-based i24 News TV channel, were similarly barred.
@realDonaldTrump Saudis refused me visa to come on your trip because I am an Israeli reporter. Humiliating? Take me on AF1! @michaeltackett
— Orly Azoulay (@OrlyAzoulay) May 17, 2017
3. The Jerusalem Post and Ynet have all the details of Trump’s itinerary for the 28-hour period the President’s in Israel and the West Bank.
See previews of different angles of Trump’s Israel visit at the Washington Post, Haaretz, Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter), the Los Angeles Times and the Religion News Service.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• Ahead of Trump’s visit, the Israeli cabinet was due today to vote on Palestinian economic benefits. Details at the Times of Israel.
Among the measures to be presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the opening of the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan 24 hours a day, progress in developing West Bank industrial zones near Jenin and Tarkumiya (west of Hebron), and increased building permits for Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank.
• While US and Israeli leaders put a happy face on relations between the two countries, furious Israeli intelligence officials reportedly shouted at their US counterparts over Trump’s intelligence leak to Russian diplomats. Ynet picked up on a Foreign Policy report shedding more light on the Israeli ire. FP writes:
The details Trump spilled likely came from a source that was also useful on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Hezbollah proxies in Syria and Lebanon, which are much higher priorities for Israel, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
“To the Israelis, ISIS is not that big of a concern,” the defense official said, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State. “We have a partner that has done us a favor. They went out of their way to support us in a campaign against ISIS, that they have no real skin in.” . . .
If the source was lost, it also could affect a U.S.-led military operation to take back Raqqa from the Islamic State with American-backed Syrian Kurdish and Arab forces, he said.
• A White House map of Israel nixes the post-1967 borders, omitting Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The map appears in a video promoting Trump’s Mideast visit.
• Death sentence in Gaza for Palestinian charged with killing senior Hamas figure. Ashraf Abu Laila will be hanged for allegedly gunning down Hamas military commander Mazen Fuqaha on orders from Israel. Hamas will execute two other Palestinians allegedly involved in the murder.
• The Red Cross closed its Ramallah office over ‘threats’ from Palestinians unhappy with the organization’s ‘shortcomings’ responding to hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners.
• The Israel-PA Joint Water Committee met for the first time in years, reports Israel HaYom. (Related reading: Palestinians Use Water as Weapon Against Israel.)
• The army nabbed a Palestinian ambulance driver who allegedly blocked Israeli’s escape from a riot.
• Worth reading: The Washington Post takes a closer look at the PA terror stipends.
• Israeli security forces arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian girl carrying a knife at Qalandiya checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Saturday.
• A US court dismissed Israeli victims’ tactic of suing Facebook for Palestinian terrorism. More at AP and the Jerusalem Post:
The 20,000 plaintiffs’ case was combined with a $1 billion damages case on behalf of the families of five victims, including US Army veteran Taylor Force, killed in a terrorist attack in March 2016 in Jaffa, against the terrorist group Hamas . . .
Shurat Hadin Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner responded stating that she was disappointed, but looked forward to a strong appeal. She said, “The district court simply ignored the claim that Facebook is liable for providing material support to designated terrorist groups when it allows Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS and the PLO to utilize its social media pages.”
“There is no difference between providing banking services to terrorists and providing a Facebook or Twitter account,” she added.
• Lebanon claims it arrested an Iraqi national it accuses of gathering information about the Lebanese army and various individuals, as well as trying to recruit others for a “sabotage network.” AP coverage.
• Wait, what? Hamas bans dog-walking in Gaza.
• New IDF Spokesperson takes office: Brig. Gen. Ronen Manlis replaces Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz. Ynet coverage. And on a related note, the IDF’s social media maven Lt. Col. Peter Lerner says goodbye to the army after 25 years of service.
• Worth reading: Australia’s ABC News visited the Ziv Hospital in Safed, where more than 3,000 wounded Syrians have received medical treatment over the last four years.
The majority of Syrian children Dr Harari treats have lost limbs through shelling and barrel bombs.
“I lived in the third world for many years. I lived in Papua New Guinea for three years. I thought I’d seen it all and felt it all, but no,” he said quietly.
“There’s something obviously shocking about it. Appalling. I don’t really have a rich enough vocabulary to tell you what my true feelings are.”
Around the World
• Delegates at the Church of Scotland’s general assembly in Edinburgh are due to vote on economic sanctions against Israel. “Should the latest policy be approved when they convene on Monday, the church will lobby the UK government to begin a boycott of Israeli goods,” the Times of London reports.
• Members of the Modern Language Association are now voting on an anti-BDS resolution. Legal Insurrection updates the battle within the academic organization. Last January, MLA delegates at its annual convention rejected a pro-BDS resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel.
• French President Emmanuel Macron’s party withdrew a second candidate who supported BDS.
• There’s a sharp rise in Mexican anti-Semitic attitudes; a survey found 56% of population says Jews have ‘too much power’ in finance.
Commentary/Analysis
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing in on all things Trump-Israel . . .
– Yaakov Katz: What has changed that Israel went from ecstasy over Trump to near-mourning?
– Zvi Bar’el: Saudi proposal to Israel could be the stuff of Trump’s Mideast dream deal
– Jonathan Tobin: The meaning of self-determination
– Bernard Avishai: Can Trump’s visit prompt new Mideast talks?
– Haviv Rettig Gur: Damning with deafening praise: Why Netanyahu is unimpressed by Trump
– Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky: Why Trump won’t find salvation in the Mideast
– Ben-Dror Yemini: An American president in the service of BDS
– Alex Fishman: Israel cannot ignore damage caused by Trump’s Russia leak
– Amb. Daniel Shapiro: Israelis cheered for Trump. But they may miss Obama more than they expected.
– Amb. Alan Baker: Four comments on the Trump visit
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): Trump wavers on Jerusalem (click via Twitter)
– National Post: Trump is right to pursue a pan-Arab NATO in the Mideast
• If you’re looking for a good whitewash of Hamas, its intentions and its charter, get a load of Sarah Helm in The Guardian. ‘Nuff said.
• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend:
– Emily Landau and Shimon Stein: The Gulf’s last best offer to Israel
– Eugene Volokh: Facebook is not liable for not policing Palestinian terrorist accounts
– Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The sun shone, the trees blossomed, and the butchers slaughtered
– Jonathan Spyer: Syria has effectively ceased to exist
– Sohrab Ahmari: An Iranian voter’s guide: Don’t vote. (click via Twitter)
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Another win for the system in Iran
– Daily Telegraph (staff-ed) : Iran is still a rogue state
Featured image: CC BY-SA Gage Skidmore; helicopter CC BY The US Army; top secret CC0 Pixabay; dog CC BY-NC-ND Let Ideas Compete; Church of Scotland via Wikimedia Commons; Trump via The White House;
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