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. Benjamin Netanyahu and John Kerry spent more than seven hours together in Rome discussing peace talks, Iran, and Syria. According to a NY Times report picked up by the Israeli press, Bibi wasn’t persuaded by Kerry’s reassurances on the Iranian diplomacy. See also Reuters.
2. Big story of the day was the US-Saudi rift. Take your pick of Reuters or Washington Post coverage. See below for commentary/analysis.
3. Will Israel return to the UN Human Rights Council, or will it become the first country to boycott a review of its human rights record? Haaretz says the plan paving the way for Israel’s return will be a significant diplomatic victory for the Jewish state. It’s not clear if there’s a consensus among the UNHRC members. However, they prefer avoiding a boycott because it would set a precedent for real human rights violators — think North Korea, Iran and Syria — to skip reviews of their records.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Navon comments on Israel’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council and other anti-Zionist insanity at Turtle Bay.
Israel and the Palestinians
• When the US turns a blind eye to PA corruption, it damages American credibility among Palestinians. Jonathan Schanzer explains why:
Today, the international community, led by the United States, is yet again pushing the Palestinians and Israelis toward a two-state solution. And Washington still has not learned its lessons. The State Department continues to give short shrift to the internal challenges dogging the PA, which is widely seen by the Palestinian street as a seal of approval for the ongoing abuses.
• The Daily Telegraph serves up one heck of a provocative headline:
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• The Saudi-American rupture might lead to closer ties between Israel and the desert kingdom. Far-fetched? Actually, it’s more plausible than you think, says Michael Totten:
All the existing Sunni Arab governments moved on from the Arab-Israeli conflict decades ago. Aside from the Palestinian Authority during the Second Intifada, only the Iranian regime and its network of allies and proxies—Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah, and Hamas—have fought Israel at any time during the last thirty years or so. The only exception occurred when Saddam Hussein launched a couple of SCUD missiles at Tel Aviv during the first Persian Gulf War in an attempt to fracture the Arab-Western alliance against him.
The majority of Arab citizens would surely think my analysis is nonsense on stilts, but aside from the (non-Sunni) regime in Damascus, Arab governments are behaving precisely in line with it. They learned quite a while ago that it’s time to set the ridiculous Palestinian conflict aside and deal with real threats for a change.
• The Jerusalem Post says Israel and other Mideast countries are rooting for the Saudis. For more commentary/analysis, see the National Post, AP, David Ignatius, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Bret Stephens.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• There’s a mysterious new web site seeking info about Hezbollah’s intelligence operatives. Western intelligence figures told McClatchy News they believe Israel is behind Stop910.com:
The site contains photographs of dozens of alleged operatives along with requests for readers to submit any information on the men, who range from suspects already known to authorities to dozens of apparently unidentified Hezbollah members. In many cases, the site shows a picture and no further information and offers rewards for phone numbers, real names and even home addresses of the men . . .
Another intelligence official based in Europe expressed dismay at many of the details the site reveals. He agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
“I can’t believe this thing,” he said. “It actually contains a significant amount of raw intelligence that would be literally illegal for American or European services to release to the public without the highest level of clearance.”
• Time Warner Cable Reaches Agreement to Distribute Al Jazeera America
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
