Today’s Top Stories
1. Lebanon’s teetering on the brink of chaos. The government’s too paralyzed to respond to a national garbage crisis, and foreign leaders are calling on Prime Minister Tammam Salam not to resign, which he has hinted to do in recent days.
What started as a protest against uncollected garbage and a shortage of landfill space has evolved into demonstrations against government dysfunction and corruption. One person was killed and dozens were injured in clashes over the last two days.
2. Purported Abbas resignation from PLO Executive Committee ridiculed as ‘silly show’.
3. UNRWA schools in Gaza weren’t open for the first day of classes, but it wasn’t because of the agency’s money crunch. The union of UNRWA employees went on strike to protest overcrowded classrooms. According to Maan News, close to a quarter-million students were sent back home:
At present, there are over 50 children in each classroom, with employees urging the agency to reduce the maximum capacity to 38.
4. Two Tales of One City: Big Media discovered that Gaza has a middle class. Why does this matter?
Israel and the Palestinians
• The PA is nudging European diplomats to ban settlers from entering EU member states.
“If the EU argues that settlement products should be ‘discriminated against,’ settlers are among those products and should be viewed the same way,” Maliki said during the interview with Asharq al-Awsat.
• Hillel Neuer‘s taking action against some anti-Semitic, inciting images posted on the Facebook page of a UNRWA school located in the Jaramaneh refugee camp outside Damascus. Why is the UN school disseminating images like this?
• The Washington Post takes a closer look at middle class life in Gaza. The strip still has a long way to go towards rehabilitation, but William Booth’s report describing a middle class pursuing fancy cars, upscale dining, saunas, and more certainly debunks the notion of Gaza as “the world’s largest concentration camp.”
Media images beamed from the Gaza Strip rightly focus on the territory’s abundant miseries. But rising from the rubble of last summer’s devastating war with Israel are a handful of new luxury-car dealerships, boutiques selling designer jeans and, coming soon to a hip downtown restaurant, “Sushi Nights.” . . .
Gaza has had a lone five-star hotel, the Mashtal, since 2011. It was mothballed for some years but is open again. Across the street is the newest sensation, the Blue Beach Resort, which has an Olympic-size swimming pool, cabana boys and a private beach.
After an Israeli TV news station did a snarky piece on the resort — wondering aloud how tourists would arrive, if not by smuggling tunnel? — the management decided to lower its profile. An employee at the hotel said Hamas security complained that journalists were giving the world the wrong impression about Gaza.
See also the Post’s photo gallery and contrast that with today’s New York Times‘ more conventional “life in the rubble” dispatch.
• An official from the Israeli embassy in Madrid told the Jerusalem Post that while the Matisyahu was a big victory over the BDS movement, there’ a note of caution:
On the negative side of the ledger, however, she said that if very few people in Spain knew about BDS until last week, this has changed because of the front page headlines this story created. Rogel also expressed concern that the attention paid this story may scare off organizers of other music and film festivals who may not have anything against Israel, or want to boycott it, but will simply weigh whether or not it is worth the headache of inviting Israeli artists or films.
Around the World
• Papers are picking up on a Financial Times report (via Google News) that in recent months, Israel has imported three-quarters of its oil from Iraqi Kurdistan. According to the FT, the sales reflect more on the unraveling relationship between the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government in Erbil.
Traders and industry analysts have suggested that Israel may be acquiring the Kurdish oil at a discounted price, though officials in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) deny this. Others have suggested it may be a way for Israel to funnel financial support to the Kurds.
• Gallup: Only one in three Americans support President Obama’s handling of Iran.
• Larry Cohler-Esses, who was the first Jewish American journalist allowed to visit Iran, shared his observations with CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria. I was intrigued by this out-take regarding Iran’s “genocidal intentions.”
• Signs point to Islamic State using mustard gas in a battle around the Syrian city of Aleppo. The Daily Telegraph reports that it’s not clear whether the chemical weapons were pillaged from stockpiles belonging to Bashar Assad or Saddam Hussein.
• Amsterdam man offers money on Facebook to kill “devilish” Jewish neighbor
Commentary/Analysis
• Ehud Barak’s Iran bombshell sounds like a case of premature detonation, argues David Horovitz.
Are we really to believe that an inept chief of staff, some wobbly ministers and an ill-timed US drill combined to prevent an obsessed PM from dealing with the ayatollahs’ nukes?
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Mudar Zahran: If Abbas leaves, who will the void?
– Danny Rubinstein: Winners and losers of (alleged) Israel-Hamas talks
– Yossi Beilin: The US must not abandon the Sinai
– Amir Taheri: A might-have-been interview with Obama
– Benjamin Weinthal: Europe unlikely to enforce Iran deal
– Con Coughlin: Ayatollahs will never be friends of the UK
– David Sanger: Future risks of an Iran nuclear deal
– Jonathan Sacerdoti: The skeletons in Jeremy Corbyn’s closet
– New York Post: Stars stand up to BDS bullying (staff-ed)
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Gayle O with additions by HonestReporting; Matisyahu via YouTube/Simon Cobbs;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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