Today’s Top Stories
1. Heh: A string of bombings targeting the homes and cars of Fatah officials was actually the work of Hamas — and then the Gaza overlords faked claims of responsibility by ISIS. The Jerusalem Post got this interesting scoop:
The intelligence source said such activities may form a pattern of operation conducted by Hamas when it wants to hurt its rivals without being blamed.
2. With tunnels destroyed, Palestinians are testing the waters of naval smuggling in expanding numbers.
3. Turns out a viral video of a Syrian boy saving a little from gunfire is a Norwegian hoax filmed in Malta. The film’s director, Lars Klevberg, told the BBC “he deliberately presented the film as reality in order to generate a discussion about children in conflict zones.
In other words, you and papers like the Daily Telegraph were deceived. But it was for a noble purpose, right?
4. Elevating Arafat: Blaming Israel for the peace breakdown, the Irish Times portrays Yasser Arafat as a successful statesman and freedom fighter.
5. Yehuda Glick is Not a Militant: If the activist for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is a “militant,” what label would apply to his Islamic Jihad-associated attacker?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Hamas is a proscribed terror organization in the UK, and yet The Guardian gave op-ed space to Ahmed Yousef. Giving a terror group a propaganda platform is a form of peaceful aid facilitating its terror agenda, a point I’ve argued time and again.
• The Jerusalem clashes are spearheaded by teens “who do not appear to be taking orders from anyone,” according to the Washington Post:
Of the more than 300 who have been charged with throwing rocks, fireworks or gasoline bottles at police, 188, or more than 60 percent, are under age 18.
The age of the demonstrators has led some security analysts to describe the uprising in Jerusalem as a “Children’s Intifada.”
• Haaretz: A secret EU document outlines sanctions to impose if Israel thwarts a two-state solution:
Sanctions mentioned by the document include marking products manufactured in the settlements in EU supermarkets; limiting cooperation with Israel in various areas; and even restrictions on the free-trade agreement with Israel.
• Israel denied Colombia’s foreign minister’s request to visit Ramallah because Maria Angela Holguin intended to only visit the PA, not Israel. According to Haaretz, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t want Holguin to set a precedent for other international diplomats.
• The Gaza war caused explosion of online hate speech in Europe according to a report (pdf format) picked up by the Jerusalem Post.
The data on online anti-Semitic incidents corresponded with an increase in real-life assaults, LICRA and INACH wrote.
• Citing security reasons, Israel banned Dr. Mads Gilbert from Gaza. I was particularly intrigued by The Independent, which acknowledged Mads’s mad views:
Dr Gilbert is on the left-wing fringe in Norway. In 2001, he told Dagbladet that the 9/11 attacks in the US were a result of decades of Western foreign policy and that he supported terrorist attacks against the US in that “context”.
• Nice look at the Temple Mount controversy at The Atlantic.
• Here’s something else that’s Israel’s fault:
Jordan reportedly says Israeli aggressions harm fight against ISIS
• South African media reports:
Woolworths has filed a court application against the organisation Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel in South Africa (BDS SA) “to protect our employees and customers from increasing unlawful protests inside its stores.”
• Canada deported Hassan Diab to France after a French prosecutor formally charged the Ottawa sociologist over the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue. Four people were killed and more than 40 were injured in the attack while the synagogue was packed with people on the eve of the Simchat Torah holiday.
Diab, a Canadian citizen of Lebanese descent, is alleged to be a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Commentary/Analysis
• Speaking in New York, Henry Kissinger said Israel should wait till the Mideast chaos subsides before moving on a final peace deal with the Palestinians.
• Worth reading: Eugene Kontorovich explains in two posts A) why Gaza is not remotely occupied, and B how, by the logic of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, you could say Gaza occupies Israel.
• Professors Einat Wilf and Ghada Karmi squared off on Sky News.
• Lisa Duggan, president of the American Studies Association, digs in her heels about the group’s hostility towards Israel. She writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed
Because we support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions as a nonviolent means to secure Palestinian rights and freedom, we too find ourselves under attack. But the critics’ complaint that our stand is unfair to academicians who don’t agree with it is a recipe for never doing anything that might draw opposition.
• Jonathan D. Halevi on the “hidden hand of ISIS” and how it impacts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
The more the Islamic caliphate continues to boost its rule in Iraq and Syria and is certain to destabilize Jordan, the greater the chances are of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the expansion of Palestinian violence towards Israel in its various names – popular intifada, armed intifada or terrorist assault.
• Wall St. Journal editor Bret Stephens ripped the Obama administration for treating Israel like a “virtual outlaw state.”
• For more commentary/analysis, see Nadav Shragai (The “Al-Aqsa is in danger” blood libel), Melanie Phillips (Why does the West give Abbas a free ride?), Jonathan Spyer (Abbas playing a dangerous double game). See also staff-eds in the Jerusalem Post (Hamas’s riches), and New York Times (A final dash on an Iran deal).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Tweet of the day:
• One week remains until the November 24 deadline on the Iranian nuclear talks. The Daily Telegraph looks at what to expect in Vienna.
• One on One: Francesca Borri shares a view of Aleppo from the ground.
• “Jihadi John,” best known for his ISIS execution videos, was reportedly injured in a US air strike. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was also reportedly injured, reports the Daily Mail.
• ISIS released another execution video: Peter Kassig, 26, an ex-US soldier, had set up a charity delivering medical supplies to refugee camps and was captured by ISIS in October.
• ISIS introduces its own currency.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA HonestReporting, flickr/Zuhair A. Al-Traifi; EU CC BY-SA Rock Cohen; Gilbert via YouTube/Truls Lie
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