Today’s Top Stories
1. Did the Arab Spring hit Gaza this weekend?
Gaza beach corn vendor attempts suicide after Hamas ‘harassment’
2. Switzerland “expressed regret” after its ambassador to Iran displayed a tasteless cartoon of peace doves defecating on Prime Minister Netanyahu. Ambassador Giulio Haas was addressing businessmen in Zurich, encouraging them to invest in Iran at the time. More on the story at YNet.
3. According to Arab media reports, Iran is trying to drastically alter the demographic makeup of Damascus by expelling 200,000 Sunnis from the city. Could you imagine the headlines if Israel did this?
According to the report, the overwhelmingly Shiite Iran is helping the regime to raze homes in the relatively plush Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus, pushing out the Sunni residents in an effort to cement local support for the regime.
Hundreds of families living in the area were given just a few hours to evacuate their homes, the report said.
4. The New York Times’ Social Media Activist For Islamic Jihad: The New York Times turns an Islamic Jihad terrorist into a social media activist.
5. Israellycool Exposes Pallywood Incident: Images of an IDF soldier being assaulted by Palestinian women and children exposed as Pallywood by the Israellycool blog.
Israel and the Palestinians
• UN to decide September 15 on whether to raise the Palestinian flag at headquarters
• An Israeli was lightly wounded in apparent drive-by shooting in the northern West Bank near the Kedumim settlement today. Times of Israel coverage.
• What to make of the juxtaposition of these two weekend headline?
- Hamas posts video appearing to show tunnel from Gaza into Israel
- Hamas member killed after Gaza tunnel suffers malfunction
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Over at Bloomberg News, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin report that the Congressional fight over the Iran deal is all but over. Meanwhile, Politico reports that the White House is pushing hinting for a Congressional filibuster to see the Iran deal through Capitol Hill. Why not rely on a veto instead?
A Democratic filibuster in the Senate would be a clear victory for the president, allowing Obama to say that for all the political noise there wasn’t enough actual opposition to the nuclear agreement with the Islamic republic to even get to a final vote . . .
Obama faces a huge pile-up of trouble if he has to veto the bill, and they know it in the West Wing. Already facing major public skepticism about the deal, this could brew more doubt. The other governments involved have expressed their own wariness, concerned that a deal preserved only by a sustained veto might represent a lack of long-term American commitment.
• Meet Adam Szubin, Obama’s point man to sell the Iran deal to Israel.
• According to BBC Persian Service correspondent Hadi Nili, Iran nixed a Tehran concert by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra over conductor Daniel Barenboim’s Israeli citizenship. A native of Buenos Aires, Barenboim also has Argentine and Palestinian citizenship. More at the New York Times.
• Iran official: We will never end fight against Israel
• President Obama pitched the Iran deal to American Jews in a webcast you can watch on YouTube. See AP coverage and the Times of Israel‘s take on how it went.
Mideast Matters
• Vice News visited the Israeli-Syrian border to learn more about the Israel’s humanitarian assistance to injured Syrians. Sara Elizabeth Williams’ dispatch has a real edge. She reports that IDF soldiers dismantled a tented settlement for Syrian refugees in the demilitarized zone in July.
The presence of sprawling, unregulated settlements so close to a hot border is dangerous for parties on both sides: the displaced Syrians are exposed to heightened war risk, and the camp could offer shelter and cover to elements hostile to Israel.
According to internal humanitarian documents made available to VICE News, Israel had known about this settlement and four others like it for at least two years and had “actively facilitated the establishment of some of them.” For this reason, the documents call the camp’s destruction, 500 meters beyond the Alpha line into the demilitarized UN Zone, “a significant change of policy on the part of the Israeli Army.”
• Worth reading: A Syrian writer returning to Aleppo for the first time in several years shares his impressions in Vanity Fair.
• Egypt’s Al Jazeera retrial: Journalists Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed sentenced to at least three years’ jail.
Greste will avoid imprisonment as he was deported to Australia in February and was being tried in absentia, but Fahmy and Mohamed were immediately taken back into police custody after the verdict was given.
Around the World
• Monaco apologized for deporting Jews to their deaths during World War II.
• Months after devastating earthquake, Israeli organizations in Nepal continue to providing support.
• Netanyahu, Shanghai, and the Communist party’s forbidden history: The good news is that the video posted by the Israeli embassy in China was successful . . .
• Commenting on media transparency and newspaper corrections that few people ever read, Anthony De Rosa notes this fascinating little factoid:
Anyone who doesn’t check back may blithely share false information on social media, where it may circulate freely. Indeed, a recent study by the American Press Institute found that “false information on Twitter overpowers efforts to correct it by a ratio of about 3 to 1.” (That is, there are three times as many incorrect tweets as corrective tweets on the same subject.)
Commentary/Analysis
• Going back to school? Here’s how to fight the Israel haters.
• It’s time for Israel and the US to craft their own “side deal,” argues Amos Yadlin.
• Looks like Matisyahu’s BDS experience is sparking some interesting conversation. An Israeli-born hip hop artist who goes by the name, Kosha Dillz got op-ed space in Billboard magazine to share his observations of anti-Semitism in the music scene.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Judith Bergman: Slandering Israel in Nabi Saleh
– Jeffrey Goldberg: 10 questions for President Obama about Iran
– Stephen Flatow: Capture of Joseph’s Tomb terrorists exposes truth about PA
– Ted Lapkin: Palestinian national identity and the roadblock to peace
– Jon Utley: American Jews reject the Israel lobby—and support the Iran deal
– Tal Shalev: Obama-Netanyahu, just sibling rivalry?
– Amir Taheri: Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Obama’s illusions
– Douglas Murrary: Talking to men with guns isn’t always peace work, Jeremy
– Avi Issacharoff: One country’s trash could be Hezbollah’s treasure
Featured image: Photo by Gratisography/Ryan McGuire with additions by HonestReporting
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