Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli police were on high alert for protests in Jerusalem and Galilee after the shooting death of a 22-year-old Israel Arab in Kafr Kana. Police say Kheir a-Din Hamdan approached them with a knife, but a video raised questions. Protests spread to universities in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
2. President Obama sent Ayatollah Khamenei a secret letter “aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.” The Wall St. Journal (via Google News) got the scoop:
In a sign of the sensitivity of the Iran diplomacy, the White House didn’t tell its Middle East allies — including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — about Mr. Obama’s October letter to Mr. Khamenei, according to the people briefed on the correspondence.
According to Haaretz, Israel learned of the letter independently, “through channels that are not part of Israel’s official contacts with the American administration.” Former Israeli ambassador Danny Gillerman heaped scorn on the letter as a sign of appeasement and weakness.
3. A Knesset committee took the first steps towards applying Israeli civil law to Israeli settlements. The Times of Israel reports:
The bill only applies to Israeli citizens, and is meant to grant Israelis in the West Bank the protections of Israeli civil law without requiring an Israeli annexation of Jewish-settled parts of the territory.
The Jerusalem Post and YNet picked up on background and opposition to the bill.
4. Look Out! NBC Makes a Mockery of Terror: “Look Out!” is more appropriate to a humorous YouTube video.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Palestinian Authority PM Rami Hamdallah cancelled a planned visit to Gaza after a series of explosions rocked the homes and cars of Fatah officials in the strip. Fatah-Hamas relations dived even further when the Islamists cancelled a rally marking the 10th anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death. Hamas claimed it couldn’t secure the event. AP coverage.
• A second victim of last week’s terror attack at a Jerusalem light rail station died of his injuries and was laid to rest on Friday. Shalom Baadani was 17.
• It’s a sad state of affairs when CNN‘s Tim Lister has this to say about the so-called car intifada.
Far from being the weapon of choice, these crude vehicle attacks seem to be a weapon of despair, and they only serve to underline the absence of both political solutions and organized forms of resistance . . .
There is no evidence these protesters have either leadership or structure — rather, they’re driven by an anger born of being penned into cramped neighborhoods with few services and fewer prospects. Israeli security forces contain that anger and make a few dozen arrests with relative ease.
The New York Times had a better piece. I liked that Jodi Rudoren led off with the cartoons, but it’s a shame she doesn’t say who is doing the inciting either. Khaled Abu Toameh does, indicating the news cycle’s road rage isn’t so spontaneous.
NBC News also reports that Gaza jihadis posted on Twitter personal details about six Israeli MKs and called on people to “ram them.”
• How’s this for praise? US General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised Israel for its efforts to limit civilian casualties during Operation Protective Edge. Moreover, Reuters adds:
Dempsey said the Pentagon three months ago sent a “lessons-learned team” of senior officers and non-commissioned officers to work with the IDF to see what could be learned from the Gaza operation, “to include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling.”
• Prominent law professors speak out against William Schabas and the UN’s Israel-bashing groupthink. See posts UN Watch posts one and two.
• The European Union’s new foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, visited Israel. Impatient with both Israel and the US, more European countries are preparing to recognize Palestine. This Wall St. Journal report (click via Google News) generated some buzz:
“We’re not going to wait forever,” said a senior European official, referring to his country’s potential move to recognize a Palestinian state. “Other European countries are poised to follow Sweden.”
• Meet the next generation of Hamas cannon fodder:
Hamas announces 2,500 recruited to new Gaza ‘popular army’
• The American Studies Association kicked off its contentious conference. Inside Higher Ed was on hand. More at Legal Insurrection.
• Ayatollah Khamenei’s always a moderating voice on Twitter:
• The Palestinian Authority managed to intercept Israeli drone transmissions and thwart assassinations of Hamas leaders during the second intifada. According to Israeli media reports:
An Israeli security source confirmed that, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Palestinians in Gaza were able to intercept transmissions during the early 2000s, as they were not yet being encrypted.
Commentary/Analysis
• The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, closed the file on the Mavi Marmara affair, and that means the PLO’s strategy of using the Hague as a tool against settlements and alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza faces uncertainty. Where does this leave Mahmoud Abbas?
• Jeffrey Goldberg‘s critical of Obama’s letter to Khamenei.
• Federica Mogherini: A bold new voice, or a lightweight?
• Elliott Abrams: An “appreciation” of Arafat 10 years after his death. See also Danny Rubinstein on Arafat, Abbas, and the next Palestinian leader.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Alex Fishman (The battle over Jerusalem’s sovereignty), Jonathan Tobin (What’s behind the run-over intifada?), Shmuel Rosner (Jerusalem’s burning fuse), Aaron David Miller (Mideast meltdown), Amotz Asa-El (Obama’s legacy now depends on the Mideast), Robert Fulford (Anti-semitism in the guise of Palestinianism), and Boaz Bismuth (Iran should surrender, not the West).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Reuters: Ahead of deadline for nuclear deal, Iran’s uranium stockpile grew eight percent in two months.
• The US State Dept. confirmed to Foreign Policy that it’s cutting funding for groups investigating Bashar Assad’s war crimes:
The funding shift has raised concern among human rights advocates that the United States and its allies are reducing their commitment to holding the Syrian leader accountable for the majority of Syria’s atrocities because the interests of Washington and Damascus are converging over the fight against the Islamic State.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Trey Ratcliff; Bensouda CC BY-NC-ND Flickr/Coalition for the ICC
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