Today’s Top Stories
1. The Saudis are beefing up their military presence along their border with Yemen. US officials told Reuters the deployment looks defensive, but YNet says the signs point to a Saudi offensive. Will the Saudis intervene in the civil war?
2. YNet: Israel freezing construction in Har Homa; 1,500 housing units on hold due to political sensitivities.
3. Qatar has been quietly trying to broker a long-term Hamas-Israel cease-fire so Gaza can rebuild. Israeli officials only told the Times of Israel they’re not ruling it out.
The Qatari proposal works around similar principles as the UN-backed initiative: a long-term ceasefire, ending the blockade of Gaza, inviting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his government back into the Strip and giving him control of the border crossings, rehabilitating Gaza, and constructing a seaport and an airport.
Some drafts of the deal do not mention demands for an airport and a harbor.
4. No Place For Ignorance in Political Cartoons: Chicago Tribune cartoonists are entitled to their opinions, but they still have to be grounded in true facts.
Israel and the Palestinians
• President Obama discussed his thoughts on the peace process and Benyamin Netanyahu with reporters. Take your pick of AP, Reuters, Washington Post coverage. Meanwhile, the New York Times looks at Ambassador Ron Dermer’s fence-mending efforts.
Meanwhile, The Daily Beast and Foreign Policy report that Congress doesn’t really give a hooey about alleged Israeli spying on the nuclear talks.
• Once again, Palestinians are to reassess security cooperation with Israel this week.
• From the Washington Free Beacon:
• A Hamasnik captured during a failed ambush of IDF soldiers during Operation Protective Edge was sentenced to 15 years in prison. AFP coverage.
• The Times of London reports that Hamas is training an increasing number of women for female battalions.
Om Adam said that the women fighters had become increasingly important because they could move more freely, passing on weapons, food and information to the men, who might spend weeks almost entirely underground in Gaza’s intricate network of tunnels. “We act as the eyes and ears on the ground for the fighters, checking the streets before they move.”
Some were engaged in direct combat, said Om Khadija, 24, a female fighter who manned an RPG and several rocket launchers during the two months of fighting last summer. All the women recruits were trained to use and fix weapons, including sniper rifles, AK-47s, RPGs and M16s.
With more Hamas women in combat than we thought, Elder of Ziyon raises this important point:
Even if they weren’t active combatants, it seems likely that some of the women killed in Gaza who are regarded as civilian were actually part of the terror infrastructure.
• Talk about giving terrorists the royal treatment. You “have an audience” with people like Pope Francis or Queen Elizabeth. The Independent‘s Kim Sengupta had an audience with Khaled al-Batsh the leader of Islamic Jihad.
• The new chairwoman of the UN Human Rights Council’s probe of Operation Protective Edge made a special point of telling council members her inquiry’s mandate includes (alleged) human rights violations committed by the Palestinians. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• Palestinians demonstrate after Egypt cuts power supply to Gaza.
Egyptian media said the government resorted to that measure as a result of outstanding payments owed by a Palestinian utility company.
Mideast Matters
• The Saudi Arabian foreign minister channeled his inner Netanyahu in comments about the Iranian nuclear talks.
• It’s official: Russia and Jordan signed a $10 billion deal to build the Hashemite Kingdom’s first nuclear power plant. According to Reuters, the 2,000 megawatt facility to be built in northern Jordan will be complete in 2022.
• The Mideast nuclear race is underway. Time rounds up the latest developments from the nuclear programs of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Suspicion rises with every new announcement partly because the Middle East is bucking a global trend. Worldwide, the number of nuclear plants has declined since the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011.
• The EU is re-imposing sanctions on 40 Iranian shipping companies.
• For the umpteenth time, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano reminded the world that he cannot conclude all nuclear material in Iran peaceful.
• Worth reading: McClatchy News (you’ll need to click via Twitter) looks at Iran’s expanding influence in the region and what it means for Israel.
• Despite well-known Islamic taboos and criticism, Iran is producing a film “portraying” Mohammed. AP coverage.
• Imagine the outrage if Israel did this:
ISIS in Tattooine: Star Wars filming set in Tunisia now battle area
Around the World
• An Israeli citizen, Eyal Baum, was confirmed as one of the victims of the Germanwings airplane crash over the French Alps. All 150 passengers and crew aboard were killed. Baum, a businessman from Hod HaSharon and living in Germany, was 39.
• South African Jews urge “yarmulke protest” against anti-Semitism after three Jewish teens were assaulted in Johannesburg.
“We therefore call on South Africans, Jewish or not, to attend a film-screening at a cinema of your choice this Saturday night (28 March), wearing a kippah [yarmulke] or hat,” the statement continued. “In this way we will demonstrate our commitment to fight against any form of prejudice and intimidation.
Commentary/Analysis
• Memo to Tom Friedman: I understand American weariness with being the global policeman. As an Israeli, I have to respond when you write the following:
But, given the disarray in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, do we really care if Iran tries to play policeman there and is embroiled in endless struggles with Sunni militias? For 10 years, it was America that was overstretched across Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it will be Iran’s turn. I feel terrible for the people who have to live in these places, and we certainly should use American air power to help prevent the chaos from spreading to islands of decency like Jordan, Lebanon and Kurdistan in Iraq. But managing the decline of the Arab state system is not a problem we should own. We’ve amply proved that we don’t know how.
So before you make up your mind on the Iran deal, ask how it affects Israel, the country most threatened by Iran. But also ask how it fits into a wider U.S. strategy aimed at quelling tensions in the Middle East with the least U.S. involvement necessary and the lowest oil prices possible.
It’s your right to comfortably sit in an energy-independent fortress America if you can pull that off. But by removing yourself from the Mideast, you make yourself irrelevant. Why should Israelis like me (or Egyptians, Jordanians, and Saudis, for that matter) care about all the umbrage from the White House, the New York Times’ editorial board, or your own columns anymore?
• This Los Angeles Times staff-ed seems to think Benyamin Netanyahu sought to disenfranchise Israeli-Arab voters. There’s a big difference between galvanizing one constituency to vote (even if expressed in a tacky way) and actively suppressing another constituency’s participation.
• Everyone’s still talking about the train-wreck of Israeli-US relations.
– Yossi Kuperwasser: No prospect for genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace
– Elliot Abrams: Obama trying to invent any excuse to break with Israel
– Max Boot: Spies who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
– Herb Keinon: Obama should take heed of the failing legacy of Mideast ‘reassessment’
– Chemi Shalev: Obama vs. Bibi: genuine outrage or cynical strategy?
– Nahum Barnea: PM apologizes but damage has been done
– Yaakov Amidror: American chutzpah
– Raphael Ahren: Without US cover at UN, Israel could face diplomatic avalanche.
Syndicated cartoonist Gary McCoy weighs in.
– Haviv Rettig Gur: Pyrrhic victories for Netanyahu and Obama
– Emmanuel Navon: Seven years of Obama hubris must end
– Boaz Bismuth: Obama’s personal vengeance campaign
– Dimi Reider: Why Netanyahu may accept an Iran deal
– AP: Netanyahu, Putin on same ‘businesslike’ level with Obama
– Sydney Morning Herald (staff-ed): Netanyahu wrong to dash peace hopes
– Wall St. Journal staff-ed: Obama’s Israel tantrum (click via Google News)
• I’m giving last word on the matter (for now) to Bassam Tawil:
In short, Obama’s anti-Israel stance is the best gift the Americans could have given to Islamist terrorists and radical Arabs. For the first time ever, the Obama Administration has created hope among Israel’s enemies that the U.S. will at last give them his wholehearted support, just as he has been doing with Iran.
• I see Noga Gur-Arieh‘s fed up with the UN’s unfair treatment of Israel.
• Worth reading Hanin Ghaddar explains why a pact with Iran throws Arab liberals under the bus.
Featured image: CC BY-SA Carly Lesser & Art Drauglis via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; Amano CC BY-SA flickr/Cancillería del Ecuador
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