Today’s Top Stories
1. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri returned to Beirut and suspended his resignation. What happens next isn’t clear, but nebulous feelgood words like dialogue, partnerships and discussion figured prominently in Reuters and Asharq al Awsat coverage.
2. Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the US elections has led him to start questioning Jared Kushner’s dealings with foreign officials during the presidential transition period — especially Israeli leaders.
The Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter), which broke the story, explains that Mueller’s Israeli interest stems from Jerusalem’s efforts to kill UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning West Bank settlement activity.
Israeli officials had asked the incoming Trump administration to intervene to help block it. Mr. Trump posted a Facebook message the day before the U.N. vote—after he had been elected but before he had assumed office—saying the resolution put the Israelis in a difficult position and should be vetoed . . .
The motivation for the Mueller team’s questions about the U.N. is unclear. Investigators typically ask a host of questions over the course of a probe, and inquiries don’t necessarily indicate suspicion.
The story was widely picked up in the Israeli press; see more at the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. The State Department denied PA claims that Ramallah froze communications with the US.
“In our view, communications are not frozen,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters in a briefing Tuesday afternoon.
“Conversations will be taking place,” she went on. “We are in contact with Palestinian officials about the status of that PLO office in Washington, as well as having conversations with them about our larger efforts on the part of a lasting and comprehensive peace process.”
Israel and the Palestinians
• An Israeli girl injured in a Jerusalem terror attack six years ago died Wednesday morning. Hodaya Asulin had been comatose ever since a terrorist planted a bomb at a bus stop near the International Convention Center in 2011. Asulin, of Mevo Dotan, was 14 at the time of the bombing. A British national, Mary Jean Gardner, was also killed in the bombing.
• For the first time, Israel is treating Syrians said to have been injured in a chemical weapons attack. According to the Jerusalem Post, the three Syrians rebels were transferred to Ziv Hospital in Safed.
• Times of Israel: Soldiers opened fire at two Gazans crossing into Israel on Wednesday, hitting one. One of the Palestinians was found with a knife.
• An attempt to smuggle tons of explosive material into Gaza was thwarted thanks to a new laboratory set up at the Kerem Shalom crossing. The Jerusalem Post explains:
During the laboratory’s initial trial period, a truck transporting motor oil raised the suspicions of the border crossing’s security inspectors.
Chemical testing subsequently revealed that the supposed vehicle oil was actually a dangerous substance, destined to assist the production of large quantities of explosive material by terror groups in the Gaza Strip.
• An Israeli parole board denied a Palestinian security prisoner’s request for early release, tying the rejection to Hamas’s refusal to return the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during the 2014 Gaza war:
“It is not the job of the parole board to produce levers to pressure Hamas for their (Shaul and Goldin’s) return, but the board believes that the early release of the prisoner who is affiliated with the Hamas terror organization could and would be harmful to the public’s confidence in the judicial system.”
Around the World
• The Dutch parliament killed two motions that would have recognized Palestinian statehood and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. According to the JTA, “Both motions were submitted in connection with annual negotiations over the foreign ministry’s budget, which in the Netherlands also features scrutiny of the kingdom’s foreign relations.”
• Outrage over German Green Party partnership with upcoming Hamas events in Gaza and Beirut. “It is unclear whether the Green Party’s funds for the event will be investigated for terror finance,” the Jerusalem Post adds.
• Police charge four students in Penn State menorah theft, vandalism.
• France’s Socialist Party expelled one of its top officials, Gerard Filoche, for tweeting an image of President Emmanuel Macron with anti-Semitic tropes.
Commentary/Analysis
• Irish columnist Lindy McDowell denounces a German court ruling allowing Kuwaiti Airlines to refuse service to Israelis simply because they’re Israelis.
To sum up then, a court in Germany, forever synonymous with the Holocaust, finds that it is perfectly acceptable in 2017 to discriminate openly against someone solely for being a citizen of Israel, the Jewish state.
As darkly ominous as the court finding, I think, has been how little debate this ruling has elicited in the media.
Had an airline refused to carry a passenger on the grounds that they were say, black or Irish or transgender or Christian or overweight you imagine this would have been way higher up the headlines.
But it’s okay when it’s the Israelis. It’s okay when it’s the Jews.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: How the ICC going after the US for war crimes impacts Israel
– Ron Kampeas: The Trump administration says it wants to shut down the PLO mission. Now what?
– Grant Rumley: Why Trump threatened to close Palestine’s D.C. headquarters
– Ben-Dror Yemini: Why Trump’s Mideast peace plan is doomed
– Lital Shemesh: Linda Sarsour, feminism and terrorism
– New York Post (staff-ed): John Kerry’s Mideast idiocy
– Jonathan Spyer: Tehran is winning the war for control of the Mideast
Featured image: CC BY dulnan; Mueller via Obama White House; Kushner CC BY Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; bomb CC0 Pixabay; Kuwait Airways CC BY-ND Bill Wilt;
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