Today’s Top Stories
1. After Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the US, Israeli media reported that the new US administration requested Israel not to make any “surprise” unilateral moves.
In particular is a Knesset bill under consideration to annex Maale Adumim which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposes. Meanwhile, a Trump-Netanyahu meeting may be held as soon the first week of February.
And YNet reports that presumptive US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman will live and work in his personal apartment in Jerusalem, instead of the Ambassador’s Residence in Herzliya. Friedman is expected to arrive in Israel by the end of February.
2. Israeli politician Tzipi Livni was threatened with arrest if she lands in Brussels for two previously scheduled events:
On Thursday, Belgium’s Le Soir daily quoted a federal prosecutor as confirming authorities intention to detain Livni, a centrist lawmaker, as per a complaint filed against her by a local pro-Palestinian group in connection with Israel’s 2009 assault on Hamas in Gaza when Livni was foreign minister.
According to Israel Radio correspondent Simon Aran, Livni has pulled out of the event, citing “personal reasons.”
3. An autopsy of the Bedouin driver who ran over an Israeli policeman may disprove claims that Yacoub Abu al Kiyan was a terrorist. Meanwhile, police internal affairs have launched a probe into the Umm al-Hiran deaths.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• The problem of banks financing Palestinian terror and laundering their money is real. But the likelihood of the PA banking system crashing is also real. This Haaretz scoop is eye-opening:
The government reached an unprecedented decision last week when it granted Israeli banks that work with Palestinian banks in the West Bank immunity from lawsuits in Israel, as well as indemnity from suits filed overseas that accuse them of involvement in financing terrorism.
The security cabinet decision last Sunday was made in light of threats by the two Israeli banks to suspend working with the Palestinian banks. If this happened, it could lead to the collapse of Palestinian banks and possibly even the Palestinian Authority, a senior Israeli official said.
• The Palestinians and the Arab world reacts to Trump.
• Tweet of the day, from Channel 4’s Jon Snow, of all people. Substitute the word “Israel” for Trump and you get the point HonestReporting has been trying to make for years. Just saying . . .
The challenge in reporting Trump is that at times telling the truth sounds so far-fetched that it looks like editorial bias
— Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) January 21, 2017
• A new desalination plant opened in Gaza, but AP cues the ominous music:
A Hamas military training site sits on part of the land allocated for the plant’s second phase. Mazen Ghunaim, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, said Hamas promised the site will be moved away in the coming days.
• The Jewish Chronicle unravels the real story behind the UK’s vote for resolution 2334 and Theresa May’s subsequent repudiation.
• Worth reading: YNet talked to some of the intelligence officers working in Israeli prisons about recruiting informants, foiling terror attacks planned from behind bars, and shed light on how Israeli-Arab MK Basel Ghattas was caught smuggling cell phones.
• Jerusalem city hall approved 560 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, on the politically incorrect side of the Green Line.
Around the World
• Tablet: Did an anti-Zionist filmmaker from Oxford masquerade as his political opposite to get internships at lobbying outfits?
There was only one problem: Antoine Kleinfeld isn’t a Zionist. He isn’t even Antoine Kleinfeld. His name, several sources have told Tablet, is James Anthony Kleinfeld, a pro-Palestinian filmmaker who, it seems, embedded himself with the Washington pro-Israel crowd, surreptitiously filming his new associates there in the hope, presumably, of producing a movie—or at least viral clips—that would publicly embarrass them. He has now disappeared.
• Worth reading: YNet talked to some of the intelligence officers working in Israeli prisons about recruiting informants, foiling terror attacks planned from behind bars, and shed light on how Israeli-Arab MK Basel Ghattas was caught smuggling cell phones.
• Seumas Milne quit The Guardian to work full time as Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor. Much of the paper’s hostility to Israel can be traced directly to Milne’s Stalinist views.
Commentary/Analysis
• No shortage of reading about Trump and Israel.
– Herb Keinon: Time to reset Israel-US ties
– Amos Yadlin: Trump’s Iranian challenge is an opportunity for Israel too
– Michael Rubin: Would Jerusalem embassy spark unrest?
– Raphael Ahren: Brave new Anglosphere: Israel revels in fresh US-UK-Australia support
– Bernard-Henri Levy: Jews, be wary of Trump
– Yossi Beilin: The president’s three promises
– Dore Gold: Is Trump a turning point in Mideast policy?
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ben-Dror Yemini: When brainwashing wins
– Yaakov Katz: The Gaza expert
– Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The BDS movement is in trouble
– Benjamin Weinthal: German courts favor anti-Semites while BDS takes hit
– Luba Mayekiso: South Africa cannot claim ancestral land yet deny Jewish people the same right
– Simon Wilder: The hateful whispers that make me want to move from London to Tel Aviv
– Moshe Kantor: Social media not doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Mister G.C.k; Livni via YouTube/Noah Arbit; Bank HaPoalim CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons/Yaakov; Trump via YouTube/LIVE ON-AIR NEWS;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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