Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel and the European Union are in “quiet” talks to reduce tensions caused by the EU’s guidelines for labeling settlement products. Haaretz got the scoop.
2. Yesterday, foreign journalists appeared before a Knesset panel that wanted to hear what reporters had to say about media bias against Israel. Tzipi Livni, head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee subcommitee, said the session was called in response to a recent nasty CBS News headline. On hand were The Media Line, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel, among others.
Thx 2 Foreign Press Association 4 recognizing we r doing our job effectively especially when its members aren't. pic.twitter.com/213vsLJUmq
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 9, 2016
3. Israeli and Turkish representatives are due to meet in Geneva to hammer out details on re-normalizing relations. The two biggest hurdles? The Gaza blockade, and Hamas operatives hosted by Turkey.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
4. The Guardian Gets Beastly Towards Netanyahu: Correspondent Peter Beaumont distorts a Netanyahu statement to portray the Prime Minister as a racist.
5. Jennifer Lopez, Don’t Give In To BDS: BDS strategy is to make any and all kind of furor through whatever means it can. Jennifer Lopez is just another excuse to bombard social media with Israel-demonization.
6. Where Terrorism is Not News: “But thanks to the silence of the media, no one will even know it even happened.”
7. Terror, Israel, and What the News Won’t Tell You: The truth about headlines and what the news media doesn’t want you to know.
Israel and the Palestinians
• A Palestinian teenager pelting drivers and soldiers with rocks was shot and killed in the southern West Bank. Yesterday evening, an Israeli was stabbed outside the West Bank settlement of Neve Daniel.
• According to Palestinian media reports, another Hamas operative was killed in a tunnel collapse near Khan Yunis yesterday.
• YNet picks up on a Twitter spat between French Ambassador Gerard Araud and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer.
@GerardAraud Hmmm. Wonder if that wisdom will one day be applied to when Jews are being murdered in Israel
— Amb. Ron Dermer (@AmbDermer) February 8, 2016
• Palestinian unity talks continued in Qatar, big yawn.
• India and Israel are close to signing a series of defense deals worth a combined $3 billion. Indian and Israeli media picked up on Times of India coverage.
• It didn’t take long for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign to lash out at an Israeli gift to Academy Awards nominees. With glitterati like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kate Winslet up for awards, both sides of this BDS-manufactured “controversy” will have to raise the bar on their internet memes.
Around the World
• According to Syrian media reports picked up by the Jerusalem Post, Israeli air craft struck a Syrian ballistic missile base and Hezbollah military base along the Syria-Lebanon border.
• According to Israeli media reports, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards successfully hacked the computer of a former IDF chief of staff. Iran’s cyber-offensive apparently came to an end only when one of the hackers, Yasser Balachi, inadvertently revealed his own e-mail address. It wasn’t reported which former chief of staff’s computer was compromised.
• After Hezbollah pressured Lebanese broadcasters not to air an interview with two Hezbollah operatives held captive b the Nusra Front, Lebanese journalist Carol Malouf simply posted the hour-long video on her YouTube channel, which NOW Lebanon describes. The two prisoners said they received little training and little pay, and said “sectarian rhetoric” influenced them to join Hezbollah.
• In an interview with the European Jewish Press, the EU’s anti-Semitism czar, Katharina von Schnurbein, said the job of fighting anti-Semtism belongs to all of Europe, not just its Jewish community.
Commentary/Analysis
• After publishing a staff-ed criticizing Gilad Erdan’s policy on not returning the bodies of Palestinian terrorists for burial, Haaretz gave the Public Security Minister a right of reply to explain his position.
I never claimed that the purpose of the directive is to deter the families, nor is it revenge. The purpose of my directive is to prevent the funerals from turning into mass demonstrations of incitement, inflaming of emotions, aggrandizement of terrorism, and calls for more terror attacks.
• New York Times columnist Tom Friedman ruminates on the latest in the Mideast. I liked David Gerstman‘s reaction.
If you acknowledge the danger of Hamas taking over West Bank you implicitly admit not making peace (yet) is rational https://t.co/2jpWYwM4yN
— David Gerstman (@soccerdhg) February 10, 2016
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jonathan Tobin: More ‘accidents’ for Hamas tunnels?
– Gil Troy: The Yasser Arafat school of Zionist history is poisoning the Zionism narrative
– Jacob Wirtschafter: The triumph of Hezbollah
– Dennis Ross: What Vladimir Putin is really up to in Syria
Featured image: CC BY woodleywonderworks; hacking via stockvault;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
