Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli coalition politics is a combination of Game of Thrones and musical chairs. In a bid to expand his one-seat parliamentary majority, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lured Avigdor Liberman back into the government by giving him the Defense Ministry. This happened as efforts to form a national unity coalition with Isaac Herzog and the Zionist Union floundered.
According to Israeli media reports, ex-British prime minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi were key figures in trying to bring about a unity government, seeing it as a way to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. This might explain Egyptian anger at the Israeli government’s last-minute rightward turn. So how did the reported plan unravel?
Herzog claims the talks failed because Netanyahu refused to provide written versions of the understandings they had reached over settlement construction and negotiations with the Palestinians, the two elements that were supposed to enable the regional move with the Arab nations. Likud sources say Netanyahu realized that Herzog did not have the backing of a majority of his Knesset faction for joining the coalition, and didn’t want to take the risk of making such far-reaching diplomatic undertakings.
Ousted defense minister Moshe Yaalon may yet be offered the job of Minister of Foreign Affairs. That post was expected to go to opposition leader Isaac Herzog before national unity talks collapsed.
You can follow the political developments in more detail at the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, YNet, and the Times of Israel and draw your own conclusions.
2. Palestinian BDS activists claim the Mossad “has been spying on activists and handing over incriminating information to local authorities.” That’s why BDS is asking that the UN Human Rights Council “recognize its members as ‘human rights activists,’ arguing that the right to boycott is a basic human right.” Israel HaYom coverage.
Such a move, if implemented, would enable the U.N. body to condemn “the use of scare tactics” against such groups, or any limitations imposed on BDS activities, as well as require countries to reverse any legal steps taken against BDS activists, and investigate any actions taken against them.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. The IDF successfully tested an “Iron Dome of the Sea.” The test mimicked a rocket attack on an offshore gas field, and the interceptor was fired from a moving Saar missile boat. Best coverage was at the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News). Here’s the footage.
4. Christian Science Monitor Forgets that Hamas Controls Gaza: To speak about suffering in Gaza without mentioning Hamas is like speaking of terror attacks in Paris or Brussels without mentioning Islamic State.
5. Is Israel Killing Palestinian Children? AFP paints a distorted picture of reality.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Tel Aviv U. President: Bringing more foreign students to Israeli universities is one way to counter BDS. Professor Joseph Klafter explained to the Jerusalem Post that’s why many Israeli universities are expanding ties with academic counterparts in India and China.
• On the anniversary of the Lod Airport massacre, a Fatah Facebook post lauded the attack. In 1972, 24 people were killed when three members of the Japanese Red Army attacked passengers with gunfire and grenades. AP picked up on Palestinian Media Watch.
• Israel Army’s medical corps adapts to knife intifada.
• Hamas has long insisted that there is no Islamic Jihad presence in Gaza.
Rafah: Hamas arrests 4 salafi jihadis after armed clash. One of them is Mahmoud Shahin, who is affiliated with ISIS.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) May 18, 2016
Around the World
• A solid majority of members of the United Methodist Church voted to recommend the church withdraw from a coalition of US groups supporting BDS. The JTA reports, however, that it’s not clear if the church will act on the recommendation. Earlier this week, several pro-BDS resolutions “went down in flames” at the church’s national convention.
• Belgium declines Israeli teens’ aid request after parents killed in museum attack
• Britain’s Labour Party is refusing to discipline Afzal Khan, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for a tweet comparing Israel and the Nazis, the Daily Telegraph reports. The tweet was posted in 2014 during the Gaza war.
• German politicians call for inquiry into anti-Semitic BDS hub.
• The New York Times announced its new public editor. Elizabeth Spayd, former editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review is replacing Margaret Sullivan. Sullivan is now a media affairs columnist at the Washington Post.
Memo to @spaydL: Best of luck as next NYT public editor. Hang tough and bring your body armor. https://t.co/QF7pTfUENS HT: @mlcalderone
— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 18, 2016
Commentary/Analysis
• Baroness Jan Royall’s report on anti-Semitism at the Oxford University Labour Club isn’t being released, so it’s significant that she took to The Guardian‘s Comment is Free section to discuss the problem.
I am clear there is a cultural problem in the OULC, which means Jewish students do not always feel welcome. We have to take action to change that. Many students reported that should a Jewish student preface a remark “as a Jew …” they are likely to face ridicule and behaviour that would not be acceptable for someone saying “as a woman …” or “as an African-Caribbean”. This should not be tolerated.
There is sometimes an environment in which Jewish people cannot debate, or feel safe doing so, unless their every remark is prefaced by criticism of the Israeli government. Yet no preconditions are placed on women debating sexism. It is not a prerequisite that Muslims condemn the atrocities of this or that government before they may enter a debate on foreign policy. These double standards are not acceptable.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jacky Hougi: Is a fear of unilateral Palestinian moves behind Sisi’s peace push?
– Yaakov Katz: New coalition makes voting easier but diplomacy harder
– Khaled Abu Toameh: How terrorists and dictators silence Arab journalists
– Jonathan Tobin: Another defeat for BDS?
– Joseph Pruder: Der Spiegel and German-Israeli relations
– Amos Yadlin: It’s time for Israel to take a stand on the war in Syria
Featured image: CC BY GotCredit with additions by HonestReporting; Yaalon via YouTube/Charlie Rose; Liberman via YouTube/AP Archive; Herzog CC BY-SA ELNET Deutschland;
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