Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel is battling the Palestinians over tomorrow’s UNESCO vote on a resolution expected to deny Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. Adding to the symbolism, the vote takes place during Israel’s Independence Day, and ahead of Mahmoud Abbas’ upcoming visit to the White House. Jerusalem Post coverage.
The Palestinians have an automatic majority on the board, but the PA and Israel are battling for the support of the 11 EU member states. Their votes have come to represent a “moral” political victory.
Related tweet of the day goes to Seth Frantzman.
@KhaledAbuToameh @AvivaKlompas The PA didn’t properly develop Battir despite it winning UNESCO status. It was a “world heritage” site barely anyone goes to today
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) April 30, 2017
2. Jerusalem Post: It’s unconfirmed if German President Frank-Walter Steinmeir will meet with representatives of Breaking the Silence in his upcoming visit to Israel. Steinmeier arrives in Israel next week for a three-day visit.
Israeli-German ties took a hit when German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel met with members of BtS over Netanyahu’s objections. Breaking the Silence a left-wing non-governmental organization collects testimonies anonymously from Israeli soldiers about what it calls “the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.”
A representative at the German Embassy said that Steinmeier’s schedule is still being put together, and there was no formal decision yet on with whom, or with what organizations, he will meet.
See responses by Ben-Dror Yemini and Spengler.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Abbas will continue to pay Palestinian prisoners, PA minister says.
4. Newsweek’s Capital Offense: Tel Aviv is not Israel’s capital.
5. Likud Becomes “Far Right” According to The Independent: For some journalists, applying labels like “hawks,” “hardliners,” “ultra-nationalists,” and “firebrands” is a favorite pastime.
6. HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz joined MK Merav Ben-Ari, Al-Monitor’s Akiva Eldar and host Ami Kaufman on i24 News’ The Spin Room for a spirited discussion on rocky Israeli-German ties, President Donald Trump’s expected visit to Israel, the Hamas-Fatah split, and more.
THE SPIN ROOM | Member of Israeli parliament… by i24news-en
Israel and the Palestinians
• Who are the possible successors to Mahmoud Abbas? The Wall St. Journal looks at four emerging leaders.
• Worth reading: Bereaved families of fallen soldiers share their stories.
• Egyptian energy companies were ordered to pay $2 billion in compensation to the Israel Electric Corporation. “Repeated attacks by terrorists on Sinai pipeline to Israel caused collapse of gas deal, forced Israel to use more expensive and polluting fuel.”
• Israeli media picked up on an Al Jazeera documentary about the Hamas drone-maker assassinated in Tunisia, Mohammad al-Zawahri.
• Pathetic Reuters “coverage” of what Hamas is billing as a new and improved not anti-Semitic charter. Fortunately, Haaretz has more realistic coverage. Last word goes to Julie Lenarz.
#Hamas also denies new document will replace its genocidal charter. Terrorists then & now. https://t.co/99r9mIicu9 pic.twitter.com/py1RnCMkFf
— Julie Lenarz (@MsJulieLenarz) May 1, 2017
Around the World
• The Irish Army wrapped up a $2 million deal to buy aerial drones from an Israel company. Critics say the purchase “may damage Ireland’s ‘honest broker’ role in Middle East peacekeeping duties,” the Ireland’s Sunday Independent.
• David Collier was on hand as Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev spoke to London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
But the story of the visit by Mark Regev to SOAS, is far bigger than a few bigoted student activists.
• Was 2014’s Operation Protective Edge a “war” in Gaza, or a fight against “terror”? That’s the $7 million question being posed in a California court. The USA Network, which was filming the miniseries, “Dig” in Israel, was saddled with unexpected expenses when it was forced to relocate much of its production to New Mexico.
When the network tried to claim $7 million in insurance, the Atlantic Insurance Company balked, insisting the conflict was a war, while the TV network called the conflict terror. A hearing is set for May 22. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• The Front door of a Milwaukee Jewish elementary school was hit with bullet on Friday morning. The glass door was broken but the bullet didn’t enter building. Nobody was injured. Police it was a stray bullet and that the Yeshiva Elementary School was not deliberately targeted. More on the story at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and JTA.
Commentary/Analysis
Unstated, but understood, is that the paper’s mending fences with Israel after the Times sanitized the terror background of hunger strike leader Marwan Barghouti.
Mr. Barghouti seems to hope that being chosen to succeed Mr. Abbas will lead to his release from prison. But he faces competition from several rivals and recently failed to secure a senior position in a round of political appointments of Fatah leadership. The hunger strike is another step in his campaign to position himself as Mr. Abbas’s successor. The political nature of the strike is a main reason the leaders of Fatah’s rival, Hamas, have not backed the strike.
• A Yom HaZikaron op-ed by Col. Richard Kemp, Maj.-Gen. Jim Molan and Arsen Ostrovsky wonders where is the world’s outrage over Hamas holding the bodies of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul?
Holding the bodies of soldiers killed in action and refusing their return to their next of kin for burial is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. As is using the soldiers’ bodies as bargaining chips, which Hamas continues to do.
Only last week, the terrorist group released a morbid video including a song in Hebrew, taunting the families of Goldin and Shaul, again in breach of international law.
To this day, almost three years since their abduction, Hamas refuses even to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access.
• Yom HaZikaron’s on my mind . . .
– Haviv Rettig Gur: In our forgetfulness, we turned our children into heroes
– Hassan Shaalan: ‘The pain persists’
– Col. Itzik Cohen: The promise to forge ahead
– Eitan Haber: The moment life was shattered
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: Cause and effect
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): The cost of freedom on Israel’s 69th birthday
– Jack Schwartz: Israel was not born of the Holocaust
• As Israelis remembered their fallen soldiers and terror victims, Ofir Gendelman draws attention to the IDF’s Muslim soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
130 Muslim IDF soldiers have fallen defending Israel. They fought alongside their Jewish brothers in arms. We remember their sacrifice. pic.twitter.com/C2ASR50Y40
— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) May 1, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Amb. Ron Prosor: UNESCO trying to impose a fake history
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Embattled, weak Abbas comes to the White House
– Josh Rogin: If Trump has a strategy on Israeli-Palestinian peace, it’s remaining a secret
– Elliott Abrams: Teaching Palestinian children to value terrorism
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: Does anyone here care about Muslim women?
– The Australian (staff-ed): Abbas visit rekindles hopes
– Robert Fulford: In a restless Germany, a new generation tires of the shame for Nazi crimes
Featured image: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90; Barghouti via YouTube/Journeyman Pictures;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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