Today’s Top Stories
1. New York Times Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren is stepping down after four tumultuous years leading the Times’ coverage of Israel. White House correspondent Peter Baker is rumored to be in the lead for the Jerusalem post.
2. Israel to build “smart fence” along southern West Bank because the current security fence isn’t preventing Palestinian infiltrators.
The terrorist who stabbed four people in Kiryat Gat on Saturday is believed to have entered the country through gaps in the frontier.
“We are aware of the problem with the fence,” Ya’alon said, according to Channel 2 news. “We intend to build a more massive fence similar to the fence on the Egyptian border. It’ll a take a little time but it will happen.”
3. UN General Assembly continues its pattern of singling out Israel, condemned the Jewish state six times. It also demanded that Israel return the Golan Heights to Syria.
4. VIDEO: Yarden Frankl looks at how a country can just disappear off a map of the Middle East.
Israel and the Wave of Palestinian Violence
• Israeli security averted a stabbing attack at the Tapuah Junction, where a car ramming attack that wounded three Israeli soldiers and a border policeman earlier this week.
Police said that the attacker suddenly jumped out of his car at a border police position and ran at the forces stationed there with a knife in his hand. The forces responded by shooting him. Large numbers of border police forces and IDF soldiers arrived at the site following the attack.
• Media outlets continue to make excuses for Palestinian terrorists. Just this week we’ve seen headlines equating terrorists with their victims, a headline that downplayed terror, and now an Australian broadcast journalist excusing terror by a Palestinian teen as the equivalent of an argument with a parent.
Around the World
•Yesterday, CNN posted an image of a map that replaced Israel with “Palestina” then replaced it after HonestReporting and our readers complained. Now, YNet has more information on CNN’s previous tangles with Israel and other mapping issues the network has gone through.
• France’s Ambassador to the US upset French Jews living in Israel by seemingly distinguishing between Jews and “ordinary citizens” of France.
After expressing solidarity with the people of France and praising the United States and President Obama for “being on our side in the fight against extremism and terrorism,” Araud wrote: “These are the foundations of our model of society that the terrorists seek to destroy: Yesterday journalists and Jews; now ordinary citizens whose only crime was to enjoy life on a Friday night in Paris.”
One Jewish ex-pat, Ron Agam, a French-born Israeli artist and activist living in New York, posted his outrage on Facebook.
“Tonight French people in the US received a letter from the French Ambassador about the events in Paris. To my surprise I learned that I — the Jew that I am — was not a regular French citizen, I was a Jew.”
• The end of power? Days after Russian fighter plane shot down near Turkey, Russia announces plans to bring in advanced defense missiles and hints at economic war with Turkey.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth Reading: Ben-Dror Yemini lashes out at international leaders, particularly Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, for rationalizing Palestinian terrorism and how that influences real prospects for peace.
The truth must be told: There is no connection between the global jihad and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2014, over 32,000 people were slaughtered by the jihad, most of them Muslim. They were not killed to promote a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine. There is, however, a connection between the fact that no settlement has yet been reached and the fact that Sweden – and not only Sweden – continues to transfer funding to the organizations that oppose a fair peace settlement of two states for two peoples.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Evelyn Gordon: A knifings Grounds for Statehood?
– Daniel Mandel: Still Blaming Israel First
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA xeeliz via flickr with additions by HonestReporting
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