Today’s Top Stories
1. It’s official: Israel to hold snap elections on March 17, 2015. Take your pick of Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, YNet, Times of Israel, or i24 News coverage. I also liked Ben Wedeman’s summary of the situation for CNN.
2. Globes: Gaza’s inoperative sewage plant may be endangering Ashkelon, potentially exposing the city’s residents (and Israel’s biggest desalination plant) to cholera and typhus.
3. According to European media reports, the parties making up Belgium’s government have agreed to recognize Palestine — and take steps to implement it.
However, the text for the draft of the planned motion does not set a date for recognition, Le Soir reported. The paper quoted from the text, which it says states that recognition will happen “at a moment deemed appropriate.”
If Belgium’s government adopts the motion and recognizes a Palestinian state, it will become Europe’s second country to do so, after the Swedish government’s recognition of a Palestinian state in October.
That’s in contrast to the French parliament, whose symbolic vote this week isn’t binding.
4. Fact-Checking AP’s Denial of Censorship: Journalists puncture AP’s denial that a prominent pro-Israel voice was blacklisted.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Two Israelis injured in Mishor Adumim supermarket stabbing attack. Details at the Times of Israel and YNet.
• An oddly chosen image is a symptom of the Times of London‘s coverage of the Israeli coalition crisis. Reporter Gregg Carlstrom blames the government’s breakup on the Jewish state bill without while barely acknowledging other contributing issues (notably the budget, a proposal to cancel apartment taxes for first-time home-buyers, and of course, partisan politics).
• The Dudley city council dropped a motion to boycott Israel. Details at the Jerusalem Post and Dudley News.
• AFP picked up on Hezbollah’s Mahdi magazine brainwashing kids into the resistance.
Mideast Matters
• An Egyptian court gave death sentences to 188 Muslim Brotherhood supporters over a 2013 attack on a police station near Cairo that left hundreds dead. BBC coverage.
• I think soccer’s world governing body is going to catch flack for some tone deaf comments by FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter.
Commentary/Analysis
• Raphael Ahren comments what the snap election mean for the peace process:
Everything having to do with the Palestinians — including efforts to enlist the international community to help prevent the Hamas-run Gaza Strip from rearming, and to thwart the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral statehood bid at the United Nations — will take a backseat to domestic politics for the months to come. And much as the international community would like to see Israelis and Palestinians resume peace talks, pressure on the two sides to get back to the negotiating table will ease. Nobody expects Israel to make any moves on this front in the middle of an election campaign.
• Khaled Abu Toameh makes a very sobering assessment of why a Palestinian state will be a source of regional instability:
How many Arab trucks loaded with goods entered the Gaza Strip over the past month? None.
This is precisely what Egypt and the rest of the Arab countries want: to turn the Gaza Strip into an Israeli, and not Arab, problem.
There is good reason to believe that the Arabs are not going to change their attitude toward the Palestinians once a Palestinian state is established. The future Palestinian state will have to continue relying on Israeli and Western aid in order to survive.
And if Israel and the West do not come to their assistance, the Palestinians will find themselves begging at the doorsteps of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State. Then, the future Palestinian state will be anything but a source of stability in the Middle East.
• Peter Berkowitz outlines 5 defective claims likely to inform the William Schabas investigation, and how Israel will respond to them.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Robert Tait (Can Netanyahu win a fourth term despite doubts?), Daniel Shek (The French vote of frustration), David Stavrou (Scandinavia — a center for Europe’s anti-Israel forces?), David Baddiel (We need to acknowledge anti-Semitism is racism), and Clifford May (How long can West pretend Erdogan is an ally?)
Image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Ed Yourdon
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
