Today’s Top Stories
1. Sparks are going to fly. The Prime Minister’s Office gave a green light to 1,000 new housing units in Har Homa and Ramat Shlomo
Netanyahu will also push new infrastructure projects in the West Bank, including roads that will also serve the Palestinian population, a PMO source said.
2. How Islamists Support Conflict on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem
Funds from Qatar and Islamic foundations from across the globe are transferred as donations to the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. This movement, headed by “Al-Aqsa Sheikh” Raed Salah, pays thousands of shekels per month to hundreds of men and women, members of the “Murbitat” (the male and female holders of the holy places on Earth), who have been on the mount for many months now. Allegedly, this is an innocent study group dedicated to learning Islamic scripture. In actuality, it is something entirely different.
On a related note, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and other PA officials visited the Temple Mount — with permission from the Prime Minister’s office, according to the Times of Israel.
3. A second victim of last week’s terror attack at a Jerusalem light rail station succumbed to her injuries. Karen Yemima Mosquera, a 22-year-old Ecuadoran national who came to Israel to complete her Jewish conversion, was laid to rest on the Mount of Olives last night. Meanwhile, Pinhas Inbari examines the role of Hamas and Fatah in the Jerusalem disturbances.
4. In a conversation with the Voice of Israel, HonestReporting’s managing editor, Simon Plosker, discussed the appalling headlines following last week’s Jerusalem terror attack. Listen to the interview.
5. Irish Diplomat: It’s All About the Settlements: For one ex-diplomat writing in the Irish Times, Israeli settlements are the single biggest threat to peace with the Palestinians.
6. The Guardian’s Car Crash Headline: The Guardian describes last week’s terror attack, which killed two people, as a “car crash.”
Israel and the Palestinians
• Washington may have snubbed Moshe Yaalon, but the Washington Post‘s Lally Weymouth gave the defense minister a chance to explain his views in a Q&A worth reading.
• An eastern Jerusalem church and its staff face repeated vandalism, attacks, and harassment. The Jerusalem Post explains why:
Dunham said a campaign of violence and intimidation against the church’s 45 employees, visitors and two Jewish orphans with Down’s Syndrome living there, was undertaken by roughly a dozen Arab neighbors several months ago after she refused to sell the property.
• Due credit to the Christian Science Monitor. Jerusalem bureau chief Christa Case Bryant looks at Israeli-Palestinian relations among ordinary people. Bryant at least attempts to show the different shades of grey and the complicated relationship that Israelis have in their attitudes towards the Palestinians.
• An Israeli government panel is mulling plans for notable new Arab town in the north of the country.
If approved, it would be the first town for Israel’s Arabs built since the establishment of the state 66 years ago.
The city’s construction was initially approved by the government in 2008, but implementation has been held up by a variety of bureaucratic snags and territorial disputes.
• Anti-Israel events on US college campuses have doubled since the Gaza crisis. The JTA picked up on a report by the Anti-Defamation League.
• The Knesset’s winter session began today. The Jerusalem Post looks at the parliamentary agenda. Some things never change . . .
Commentary/Analysis
• Staff-eds in the New York Post and New York Daily News denounced the PA incitement that led to the murder of a three month-old baby and an Ecuadoran tourist by a Palestinian terrorist.
• Israel’s former ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, explains Gaza’s role as a logistics hub for Sinai jihadis.
• The New York Times op-ed sections finds another reason to bash Israel, this time for its treatment of its Arab minority.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Egypt’s planned buffer zone along the Gaza border would mean relocating thousands of Bedouins. Haaretz coverage.
• An Egyptian TV host was suspended for making a reference to Egypt’s 1967 defeat while other news shows were mourning the 30 soldiers killed in Sinai suicide attacks. More on that at the Times of Israel and Al-Ahram.
• Vladimir Putin’s Tangled Stance on Israel
• What does Hezbollah mean by “painful concessions” in Syria?
• New York Times: ISIS hostages endured torture before beheadings.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Joris Belmans
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