Today’s Top Stories
1. Egypt sentenced two Al-Jazeera reporters to death, and ex-president Mohammed Morsi to 25 years in prison. They, along with several other defendants, were charged with passing national security documents to Qatar and its flagship news station. See AP along with Al-Jazeera.
The two Al-Jazeera employees – identified by the judge as news producer Alaa Omar Mohammed and news editor Ibrahim Mohammed Hilal – were sentenced to death in absentia along with Asmaa al-Khateib, who worked for Rasd, a media network widely suspected of links to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
2. Palestinians began talks with Egypt to set maritime boundaries.
The Palestinian strategy is to reach agreements with two of its neighbors in the Mediterranean — first Egypt and then Cyprus — to define exclusive economic zones with respect to them, and then consult with lawyers as to what its potential borders with Israel could be.
More at the New York Times.
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3. Syrian boxer Ala Ghasoun dropped out of a boxing tournament rather than fight an Israeli, who I believe is Igor Lazarev.
Participation in the tournament was a precondition in qualifying for the upcoming 2016 Olympic games that will take place in August in Rio de Janeiro.
“I quit the competition because my rival was Israeli, and I cannot shake his hand or compete against him while he represents a Zionist regime that kills the Syrian people,” Ghasoun told Arab media over the weekend.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Three Palestinians were arrested after Israeli soldiers acting on an intelligence tip found an M-16 rifle hidden in their car on Saturday. Times of Israel coverage.
• Is the Arab peace initiative really back on the table? The Media Line takes a closer look at its substance and status.
• Why is the mainstream media only interested in hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?
https://twitter.com/KhaledAbuToameh/status/743893760908591108
• The Jerusalem Post discussed Israeli-Irish ties with the Emerald Isle Foreign Minister Charles Flanagan.
• The BBC takes a closer look at the “dying” Dead Sea.
You may have read that the Dead Sea is dying. You can see why the idea appeals to headline writers but it isn’t quite true.
As the level drops, the density and saltiness are rising and will eventually reach a point where the rate of evaporation will reach a kind of equilibrium. So it might get a lot smaller, but it won’t disappear entirely.
It is however shrinking at an alarming rate – the surface level is dropping more than a metre (3ft) a year.
Around the World
• Rhode Island legislature passes anti-BDS law.
• It’s non-binding resolution, but the Dutch parliament called for stripping BDS groups of government funding.
• NPR producer Karyn Miller-Medzon explained to The Algemeiner that a “deluge” of Jew-hatred in response to broadcast about online anti-Semitism forced the program to shut down the page’s reader comments.
Ironic (sad) that comment section of @hereandnow webpage about online #antisemitism had 2 be shut down b/c of antisemitic slurs #StopTheHate
— Karyn Miller-Medzon (@KBMM) June 15, 2016
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Avi Issacharoff: As Palestinian violence recedes, some question if lull can hold
– Yoram Ettinger: Israel bucks the global trend
– Eli Lake: Is Israel a pariah? Not according to its new friends
– Grant Rumley, Adam Rasgon: Assessing the Palestinian Authority’s foreign policy
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Jewish enough for the trains
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: Defeating Assad brings about Hezbollah’s downfall
– Jonathan Spyer: Hezbollah sinking in the Syrian quagmire
– Yaakov Lappin: Hezbollah more powerful but more stretched than ever
Images of Lazarev via Facebook/Lazarev; Dead Sea CC BY L Church;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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