Muslim Brotherhood Wins Egyptian Elections
June 24, 2012 16:49 by Pesach Benson
Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories:
1. As today’s Israel Daily News Stream went to press, Egypt’s Presidential Election Commission declared Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi the winner. Twitterville, weary of the droning speech, was eager to move on.
2. Ankara calls for NATO meeting after Syria shoots down Turkish jet over international waters. More at ABC News/Reuters.It appears the Iranians are sweating more than Syria. Deutsche Welle says Tehran’s urging restraint.
3. Jewish Chronicle: Mark Thompson, the BBC’s outgoing director general, apologized to MP Louise Mensch for BBC News dropping the ball on the Itamar massacre. It’s been more than a year since the Fogel family was brutally murdered and the Beeb was hardly interested.
“News editors were under a lot of pressure,” he said. “Having said that, it was certainly an atrocity which should have been covered across our news bulletins that day.”
Israel and the Palestinians
Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity
• Church leaders oppose the PA’s crusade for the Church of the Nativity’s listing as a World Heritage site. AP suggests that the Palestinians are heading for a big letdown at UNESCO over the upcoming vote:
With a big measure of diplomacy, the leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian churches rebuffed the Palestinian proposal, politely reserving judgment on its reasons.
“In our opinion, we do not think it opportune to deal with this request that the Basilica and its entire complex be included in the list of World Heritage sites, due to different considerations,” read a letter to Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas signed by the three leaders. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
• Hamas hasn’t proved it can enforce a new cease-fire with Israel. The Jerusalem Post‘s Khaled Abu Toameh asks if Hamas is losing control of Gaza?
Internal disputes and loss of Syrian and Iranian support, on the other hand, have had a negative impact on Hamas’s performance.
Some Palestinians in Gaza also said that Hamas is not trying hard to enforce the cease-fire out of fear of facing accusations of preventing “resistance” attacks against Israel. Hamas leaders cannot afford to be branded as traitors at a time when Islamists are growing stronger in a number of Arab countries, especially in Egypt.
Another reason Hamas seems to be losing control, Palestinians say, lies in the fact that Muslim terrorists from Arab countries are operating inside the Gaza Strip.
Police officer and journalists take cover during 2008 rocket attack on Sderot.
• Life under rocket fire has become too normal for Israeli communities near Gaza. Thumbs up to the Daily Telegraph for publishing an oped by three municipal officials:
The latest bombardment on our homes barely made a scratch on international headlines or the agendas of world leaders. It seems the sheer regularity of attacks has dulled global sensitivities to our communities’ plight. Yet the decline in world attention has not been matched by any reduction in the daily trauma endured by our citizens.
In the Israeli town of Sderot for example, 92 per cent of residents have experienced a rocket fall near them, while 49 per cent know someone killed by a rocket. Unsurprisingly, between 74 – 95 per cent of children in this distressed town exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Many families must often live in a single, protected room, while the school day and communal activities are routinely postponed in an effort to avoid large-scale civilian fatalities. When they are in class, the first calculation that our children learn is the 15 seconds that they have to find shelter once the rocket alert siren is sounded.
Our jobs as regional council leaders should be focused on local services, schools and community centres, but instead are dominated by securing the basic safety of our citizens. We should not allow this most abnormal of situations to become an accepted norm.
• Bungled headline of the weekend, courtesy Reuters:
You have to read the article to find out “the strike followed the firing of two rockets at Israel earlier in the day.”
• Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Ruth Pollard breaks out the violins for Gaza children living and dying with contaminated drinking water. But as I pointed out earlier this month, Big Media’s not taking into account Hamas’s Pipe Dreams. The Palestinians destroyed their own utility system to build pipes into rockets, you see.
• In an Ottawa Citizen op-ed, Nicky Larkin explains how he became an Irish Zionist after initially touring the West Bank with Palestinian groups:
I was confused by the constant Palestinian repetition of the mantra of “non-violent resistance.” Why put up all the posters of martyrs, if you advocate non-violent resistance? I was supposed to understand all this somehow because I’m Irish. But even the IRA didn’t blow themselves up . . . at least not on purpose.
I was also frustrated by the unquestioning attitude of the foreign activists. Anything seemed acceptable in the name of the Palestinian cause. No questions asked. But would these war-tourists apply this same liberal attitude if it was happening at home in their own country? If buses were exploding in their own home cities? If they weren’t out here on holidays in their summer playground?
• In a NY Times op-ed, Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Center plays up Palestinian victimhood. Israel’s smugly content with the status quo, which is why Thrall says the only Palestinian options are popular protest and armed resistance.
• You can imagine where this op-ed’s going: A) Haaretz’s literary editor B) takes to The Guardian‘s Comment is Free section where she opines on C) Alice Walker’s refusal to translate “The Color Purple” into Hebrew. Bottom line: Israel needs Walker’s message because it’s too racist:
Maybe this public and humiliating demonstration of primitive racism to the world is Israel’s punishment for the occupation. Something inside us is sick. The situation is disturbing as well as infuriating – but the way to fight it is to make your voice heard, not to be silent. In her decision not to have her book translated in Israel, Walker is choosing to keep silent, absenting herself from Israel’s crucial public discourse about racism and the occupation.
jeb stuart
5:49 pm
Jun 24, 2012
The coverage of the Egyptian elections has demonstrated how open to coercion or willing submission to the fomenters of Shariah Law the Media and the British government and some other European nations and certainly President Obama have become. The editors at the BBC can not button their pants without the British governments nod. Coverage of the Egyptian election has been horrendous, treated like a fully mature democratic election instead of a choice between two sorts of tyrannies; secret military police or religious police. When 150 missiles necessittated an Israeli response AP’s coverage was no better focusing only on the response not on the fomenters of aggression.
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Stephen
12:37 am
Jun 25, 2012
So, let me get this right: Since January 2011 more than 900 rockets have landed in Israel and Israel’s response to two rockets is now considered breaking the “cease fire”!
Please, someone, tell me when the cease fire actually was a cease fire? When Israel is attacked, Israel is expected to do the Christian thing and turn the other cheek. When Israel reacts and does what every other nation on this planet does, well, its an aggressor.
When Israel kills a terrorist, outrage is the response. Never mind the dead Israelis.
When Jews are murdered the world collectively wrings its hands and says something should have been done, yet when Jews stands up for themselves, well, how dare they!
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lawrence Kuznick
2:54 am
Jun 25, 2012
Well, here we go again with Turkey, testing the waters, so to speak, and then getting convulsive when there is a reaction. Now, they are demanding a sort of “apology” from Syria, as they did from Israel. This is like one if by land, two if by sea. Syria so far is balking, as did Israel.
But I am waiting for the explosion of popular ire from all those ‘peace’ groups in Europe and elsewhere. It won’t come, of course. Mr. Erdogan is, though, managing to get on the front pages everywhere. I suppose the sacrifice of the Turkish pilots for the edification of the prime minister is worth it.
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Brent Pudsey
3:36 am
Jun 25, 2012
As a Canadian citizen I was happy to hear that a newspaper in my capital city , the Ottawa citizen was making a stand for Israel. Larkin’s comments about becoming a Zionist are good in that as one who has understood foreign oppression, he saw the folly of the movement from his lense of experiencing the activities of the IRA.
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Lilly Tobin
6:13 am
Jun 25, 2012
It is refreshing to read Mr. Larkin’s astute observation and perception of the Palestinians’ repeated and hollow complaints. Thia whole problem would not have arisen in the first place had they peacefully accepted , as their Jewish neighbors did, the 1948 Partition plan passed by the UN. Instead , they chose belligerency and 5 Arab countries chose war with stated genocidal intent to push the Jewish people into the sea. It was only with God’s endless mercy and Providence that this little ragtime army, poorly armed and mostly untrained and unprepared was able to fend them off.
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andrew o'shea
9:17 am
Jun 25, 2012
I have just returned from a trip in Israel and am amazed how the arabs refuse to adjust their position. The amount of money available to them through oil etc and they buy guns and rockets. Israel spent their time and energy with agriculture and what joy to see the abundance of greenery and vegetation, food and water for all. When this land is returned to ‘arab’s’ they destroy it all. What has happened to a people when killing innocent people is more important than feeding the people under your care. I see now the world media and political leaders are plain liars. If they ‘cared’ about Israel or justice, they would stop selling weapons. Too much money in weapons and no profit in peace
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Muslim Brotherhood Wins Egyptian Elections | The Conservative Papers
12:50 pm
Jun 25, 2012
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alex parks
7:58 am
Jun 27, 2012
When will we see an election in an Arab country that returns a moderate goverment ? I note that only 50% of voters voted in the recent Egyption election
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UNESCO Gives Palestinians the Church of the Nativity | Blogs about Israel aggregation
6:48 pm
Jul 01, 2012
[...] 1. UNESCO gave the Church of the Nativity “World Heritage” status. I wish CNN coverage had pointed out that church officials oppose UNESCO. [...]
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UNESCO Gives Palestinians the Church of the Nativity | The Conservative Papers
12:47 am
Jul 03, 2012
[...] 1. UNESCO gave the Church of the Nativity “World Heritage” status. I wish CNN coverage had pointed out that church officials oppose UNESCO. [...]
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