Today’s Top Stories
1. According to the New York Times, the Trump administration is moving to cut US funding to various UN organizations. Palestinian membership is one of the red lines:
Those criteria include organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization, or support programs that fund abortion or any activity that circumvents sanctions against Iran or North Korea. The draft order also calls for terminating funding for any organization that “is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism” or is blamed for the persecution of marginalized groups or any other systematic violation of human rights.
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2. The Washington Post picked up on the story of a Canadian-Israeli Jew who traveled to an undisclosed Arab country and ended up fighting against Islamic State. Ben Hassin’s charged with murdering a taxi driver who threatened to hand him over to Islamic State after discovering the 21-year-old was an Israeli national.
Hassin, who is also a Canadian citizen, initially went to the country to visit his grandparents who live there. While there, he decided to join local fighters in their battle against the Islamic State, said his father, Ilan . . .
Hassin has been jailed in the country since June 2015.
Ilan Hassin decided this week to go public with his son’s story after reaching a “sulha” deal with the dead man’s family. Under the agreement, which is a common practice in Arab countries, the family must pay $120,000 to release him before a verdict is brought Saturday.
Haaretz updates that the $120,000 has already been raised. Strangely, I haven’t yet seen the Canadian press pick up on any of this.
3. Israel is moving forward with a plan to take in 100 Syrian war orphans. AP picked up on Israeli media reports:
If carried out, it would be the first time Israel absorbs refugees from the ongoing war.
According to the plan, first reported by Israel’s Channel 10, Israel would initially house the orphans in boarding schools, and would seek Arab families in Israel to adopt them. The orphans would eventually receive permanent citizenship, and first-degree relatives would be allowed to join them in Israel.
4. SMH Digs in Heels Over Israeli Capital (UPDATE): The Sydney Morning Herald refuses to correct an article that implies Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital. We’ve now submitted a complaint to the Australian Press Council. Back our efforts and sign our petition.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Fatah is already planning a terror campaign to prevent US embassy move to Jerusalem, judging from Palestinian Media Watch.
• Palestinian officials confirmed that Obama’s last-minute $221 million aid transfer was frozen by the Trump administration. The Washington Post notes that the State Department is reviewing “dozens, if not hundreds, of foreign aid allocations” made during the 75 days between the November elections and January inauguration.
• The UN Security Council discussed Israel’s latest settlement moves but took no action.
• It’s been 25 years since Israel and China established diplomatic relations. The Media Line takes a closer look at the quarter-century of ties.
• A Palestinian gunman who opened fire on IDF troops in a drive-by shooting was shot and injured when they returned fire near Ramallah on Wednesday evening. In a separate incident last night, a Palestinian rammed his car into a bus stop near the settlement of Kochav Yaakov, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Soldiers found the driver holding a knife in his hand. No Israelis were injured in either incident.
• The IDF raided Palestinian weapons workshops around the West Bank.
Security forces believe that most of shooting attacks which have occurred in the West Bank and inside Israel were carried out with weapons locally produced in the West Bank.
• An Israeli woman who was sexually assaulted by Palestinians in 2008 was recognized by the government as a terror victim. The woman, identified only by the letter A., was a 25-year-old student when she was attacked by four Palestinian teenagers near Jerusalem’s Old City. As a recognized terror victim, A. will be eligible for certain state benefits. In 2015, a woman raped in Tel Aviv was also declared a terror victim.
Around the World
• In a highly unusual move, a Saudi magazine printed an Israeli journalist’s account of Iran’s role in two Buenos Aires bombings. The article, “Holding Iran Responsible” (English website) by Ronen Bergman, was published in the November-December edition of Majalla magazine. Backstory at the Times of Israel.
It focuses heavily on the evidence accumulated by Argentinian investigator Alberto Nisman proving Iran’s direct responsibility for the two bombings — the 1994 AMIA bombing was commissioned by top Iranian leaders in a meeting they held in Mashad in 1993 — and Nisman’s allegations that the previous Argentinian government of president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner attempted to cover up Iran’s role.
• The Algemeiner takes a closer look at a bill put to Virginia House of Delegates that would recognize anti-Semitism as an unlawful form of discrimination. It’s especially relevant for Jews on campus:
The bill, Marcus said – which also demands that Virginia schools adopt the State Department definition of antisemitism, including certain forms of anti-Zionism – “would not outlaw the phenomenon; it would merely provide tools for the state’s public universities to use when applying their existing codes of conduct.”
• German police cracked down on members of the so-called “Reichsburger movement,” a far-right terror group that police said had procured arms for attacks on Jews and other minorities. Six people were arrested in raids across the country. More at Deutsche Welle.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Robert Satloff: What Trump would gain from moving the US embassy to Jerusalem
– Jennifer Rubin: Settlments: Understanding what Israel did and didn’t do
– Yasser Okbi: Hezbollah’s road to regaining legitimacy goes through Israel
– David Harris: On International Holocaust Remembrance Day
– Arsen Ostrovsky: Never again
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Meena Kadri; China CC BY-NC Seb; Nisman via YouTube/daniberliner
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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