Israel Daily News Stream 05/16/2012
May 16, 2012 12:56 by Pesach Benson
Everything you need to know about today’s media coverage of Israel and the Mideast.
WikiLeaks may be responsible for yesterday’s hanging of a “Mossad agent” in Iran. Big court judgment for American victims of Palestinian terror. And did Iran’s foreign minister act as a front for illicit nuclear procurement activity?
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Israel and the Palestinians
• The family of Daniel Wultz won a $323 million judgment against Iran and Syria for their roles in a 2006 terror attack. The 16-year-old Jewish American resident was among 11 people killed in a Tel Aviv restaurant by an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber. I’m very pleased with this AP headline for two reasons.
- The judgement won’t bring back Daniel Wultz, but I’m relieved to see justice done. Even as doctors fought for the comatose teen’s life, Islamic Jihad brazenly called Wultz “the ideal target.”
- An AP headline uses the word terror as its own word.
See also Miami Herald and Times of Israel coverage.
• Naqba Day came and went with relatively few clashes. A Times of Israel analysis attributes this to IDF readiness, a “weary and fractured Palestinian public.” The end of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike also helped as “the minor victory given to the Palestinians on the eve of Nakba day robbed many of the will to protest.”
• Over at the Times of London (paywall), Amir Taheri suggests Israel’s new coalition drop peace talks with the Palestinians and rebuild itself.
I suggested that the two-state formula had started as an empty slogan and was now a soiled cliché. There was no evidence that the Palestinian elite valued the creation of a state more than the “cause” of destroying Israel — and experience shows that every “peace initiative” has hardened positions on both sides, making an accord that much more elusive. Paradoxically, there may be a stronger chance of a lasting settlement if the coalition eschews wasting time and political capital on talks. Instead it should concentrate on rebuilding Israel and rethinking its links with the rest of the region . . .
The image of Israel as weak encourages those who favour revenge over coexistence, making the conversion of the Palestinian elite to a peace strategy more problematic. Israel also has to work out where it fits into the geopolitical landscape of a Middle East being reshaped by the Arab Spring.
• Two months after HonestReporting exposed the UN connection to Khulood Badawi’s false photo tweet, the UN’s investigation grinds on. The Jerusalem Post reports that the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Catherine Bragg, arrived in Jerusalem “to examine both OCHA’s work here and the fallout from the tweeting incident.”
Badawi was suspended from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in response to the Israeli backlash. Last month, HonestReporting CEO Joe Hyams delivered a petition to OCHA signed by 15,000 people demanding her dismissal.
• Irish novelist Gerard Donovan skewers the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which tried to bully him into cancelling an appearance at the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem. The Irish Times picks up on Donovan’s blistering open letter to the IPSC:
Mr Donovan described the campaign group as “idiots” as he had cancelled his planned visit to Jerusalem two months ago, but solely on health grounds . . .
He added: “If I had been well, I would have gone to Jerusalem. It is the job of the novelist to write things people don’t want to read and to go places where other people don’t want to go.
“Nobody tells me where I can or cannot read my work.”
Henry Federman
2:05 pm
May 16, 2012
If the Palestinians really wanted peace after 64 years of negotiating something would have been accomplished, either they trying to get the whole of “Palestine”and using the “refugees”as bait as an excuse for refusing to talk.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Bill Kelly
6:37 pm
May 16, 2012
Wiki Leaks caused the death of someone else. Someone trying to do good for Israel. Their leader needs to be brought to Sweden to face his accusers. I’m not extremely fond of the Swedish government anymore, but in this case, I suspect there was some wrongdoing on his part. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, so I would hope that he would receive a fair trial, and not be an excuse for punishing his Wiki thing, which he needs to b arrested for also. Honesty is good, but a fool utters all he knows, and a talebearer reveals secrets.
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Frank Adam
8:01 pm
May 16, 2012
The two state solution and trying for peace talks are both useful to Israel and validate refusing citizens’ rights and votes to the Arabs of Gaza, Judea, Samaria, or even East Jerusalem.
However giving the the brush off to interfering naives and wet behind the ears – or cynical – foreign journalists and politicians needs a kick at their premises tha the Arab parties want to make peace. This is a matter of asking whether the Arabs of the PA are willing after talking outstanding details to:
*sign a peace with Israel as distinct from varieties of agreements, temporary-by-definition ?
*compensate Jewish families from the Arab World for property confiscated or forced to leave?
*stop their schoolbooks and public media pouring out racist, rude and defamatory rubbish about Israel and Jews in general?
*prevent freelance thieves, jihadis, fedayeen etc of any description, harrassing Israeli frontiers.
*accept that he price of recognising Palestine Arab nationall self determination is that he Arab World recognise Israel’s self determination as aJewish majority.
Alternatively when approached for a peace initiative Israeli representatives could usefully respond that they are delighted to hear that the Arab parties have accepted the above points!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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emes
11:48 pm
May 16, 2012
Its a shame that Kahane isn’t still around – He wouldn’t touch an Arab, let alone condone signing any peace agreements with them – Why should we sign away our legal, moral and historical rights to our homeland! Wake up Jews everywhere, its coming up to another period when we are going to get our asses kicked all over again – every generation of Jews gets a puch-in-punim to remind us who we are – Europe is stirring again also – Get prepared virbally, with determination and with foresight. We are watching our children assimilating – we are already in the minority, let us not water down our families – this has happened too many times!
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emes
12:06 am
May 17, 2012
When an incontinent website lets go of every positive substance which should be maintained within the walls of secrecy, naturally, something has to give – unfortunately in this case a valuable agent for Israel. Its not clever selling a life down the Swannee – For Jews life is precious, we don’t go around this planet bombing, killing, and maiming for the hell of it – unfortunately the rest of the world gives credence to those who do.
So, WikiLeaks, its not clever what you have done – for this and similar misnomers I suggest you just change your name to DickLeaks!
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M.Sphardi
7:33 pm
May 17, 2012
Just as we are developing the capability of intercepting rockets aimed at us, so too must we become adroit at destroying liberal and Arab lies before they develop a life of their own. That’s where they become problematic: when they get several days of ever widening circulation.
So too, the US’s National Public Radio (NPR) uses BBC for 24 hours of news broadcasts. BBC’s biases must be more widely acknowledged and, if possible, corrected.
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