Senior Hamas Figure Reportedly Defects to Israel

Today’s Top Stories

1. According to Palestinian media reports, a senior Hamas figure with extensive knowledge about the Gaza tunnel network defected to Israel. Haaretz writes:

[Bassam Mahmoud] Baraka reportedly went to the border fence and gave himself up to soldiers who were waiting for him. According to the reports, he was carrying a laptop.

 

It was also reported that the Red Cross had informed his family in Gaza that he was in Israeli custody.

2. Egypt’s largest newspaper, Al-Ahram, published a series of anti-Semitic articles describing purported Jewish and Israeli plans for world domination. You know it’s a problematic when journalist Ali Gad cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a source. Here’s one snippet translated by MEMRI:

In the modern era, the Jewish plots have adopted the concept of soft warfare in order to fulfill the dictates of the Talmud and dominate the world… They believe that destroying religion and morality is the only way to remove a person from faith, intention, and purpose, until people become an empty vessel that can be reshaped, and into a central factor in plans for destruction and ruin.

3. Iraq says it’ll sue Israel for 1982 air strike on its Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. If I’m not mistaken, the two countries have been in a technical state of war since 1948.

Will #Israel be suing #Iraq for those scud missile attacks? https://t.co/k2RCKis1Cd

— Jack Mendel (@Mendelpol) June 15, 2016

4. One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Clown: Newsweek refers to accused terrorist as a “Palestinian Clown” but journalistic bias is no laughing matter.

5. HR’s Simon Plosker was on the Nothing Left podcast on Jewish Community Radio, discussing media bias, anti-Semitism in the UK, the cooperation between the far left and radical Islamists, and the media’s role in creating an environment where anti-Semitism can flourish.

Israel and the Palestinians

• The White House rejected an increase in Israeli missile defense funding. More at the Jerusalem Post plus Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response at YNet.

• Haaretz: Non-diplomatic staffers at Israeli missions in New York, London and Paris are staging a three-hour “warning strike” today over working conditions.

• Palestinian gunmen carjacked a PA minister near the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem — possibly in revenge for the recent arrest of four men in the camp. More at the Times of Israel.

Around the World

• Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest banking institution, shut down a BDS account. According to the Jerusalem Post, it is “believed to be the first instance of a German-owned bank taking action against BDS.”

The closure of the account may have ramifications that will ripple across Germany, where there are scores of anti-Israel groups that promote BDS and maintain bank accounts within the Federal Republic.

• According to Schools Week, Britain’s “Jewish schools have received almost seven times the amount of government funding for security this year compared with two years ago.” Here’s the need in quantifiable terms:

However, figures released earlier this year by the CST show that while there were 924 antisemitic incidents in 2015, a 22 per cent fall from 2014, 85 targeted schoolchildren or teachers – 19 more than the previous year.

Commentary/Analysis

• Orlando’s on my mind.

– Kevin Reagan: What America can learn from Israel’s culture of preparedness
– Fr. Raymond de Souza: No doubt about it — we are at war
– David French: Welcome to Israel’s reality

• Worth reading: Eli Lake sat down with Natan Sharansky and found “Israel’s prophet of freedom gives in to Middle East reality.”

At the end of the day, Sharansky said, Israel is too small and threatened to lead the fight against dictatorships alone. This should be a job for the American president. “I cannot blame my government for the fact that the free world is playing less of a role in leading in the Middle East,” he said. “So we have to make the best of it.”

 

And while Sharansky said he’d like to see Obama and his successor emphasize human rights, he also conceded that in the midst of a global war against radical Islam, Western leaders must fight along with the allies they have.

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Janice Halpern: Guess which country the UN decries now (click via Google News)
– Amos Harel: Israel’s evolving military
– Bassam Tawil: Hamas threatens Jordan
– Clifford May: Terrorism and economic warfare against Israel
– Reuven Berko: Hamas at a crossroads
– Emmanuel Navon: Desmond Tutu is wrong about Marwan Barghouti
– Ronen Hoffman: Israel’s collapsing foreign ministry
– Robert Lantos: The true face of BDS
– Fred Maroun: What to expect from an independent Palestinian state

Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Ed Yourdon via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; tunnel via YouTube/Vice News; Sharansky CC BY-ND The Jewish Agency for Israel;

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

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