Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli-Jordanian relations are in crisis after a Palestinian worker moving furniture stabbed a guard at the Israeli embassy in Amman with a screwdriver.
The Israeli security guard shot the 17-year-old assailant, while the building’s landlord was hit by a stray bullet. Both succumbed to their wounds. Jordan wants to question the guard and is refusing to let him leave the country. But Israel’s refusing. The Jerusalem Post explains the unfolding standoff:
The Jordanians have refused to let the guard be transferred back to Israel. The Foreign Ministry said that according to the Vienna Convention that covers diplomatic relations, the guard has immunity from investigation and arrest. He, and the rest of the delegation, are currently locked down in the compound, and Israel is not letting the Jordanians investigate the guard.
According to Ynet, “The Foreign Ministry believes the incident to be a terrorist attack related to the events surrounding the Temple Mount.” More on the unfolding developments at Haaretz and the Times of Israel.
This Times of London headline is inexplicable:
2. Call it an “Al-AqsaFail.” A Palestinian stabbed an Arab-Israeli in Petach Tikva this afternoon. The terrorist reportedly told police he did it “for Al-Aqsa.” The victim, a bus driver from the Israeli Arab town of Arara was hospitalized in moderate-severe condition. More at the Times of Israel.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. PA money budgeted for terror stipends has increased in 2017.
According to the PA budget, salaries to incarcerated and released terrorists will amount in 2017 to 552 million shekels ($153.4 million), a rise of 13 percent over the original budget of 2016 and 11 percent more than the actual expenditure in 2016 (revised budget). The money will be transferred to the Palestinian National Fund, the financial arm of the PLO, which was designated by Israel as a terror organization due to its involvement in paying terrorist salaries.
4. Watch HR’s Daniel Pomerantz discuss coverage of the Temple Mount and Neve Tzuf massacre with i24 News.
"An inability to distinguish between someone who's attacking & someone who got attacked" –@danielspeaksup of @HonestReporting on intl. media pic.twitter.com/po12kSmY6E
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) July 23, 2017
Israel and the Palestinians
• White House envoy Jason Greenblatt is returning to the Mideast to calm the Temple Mount tensions.
• Palestinians continued clashing with police by Lion’s Gate overnight.
• Australian ABC News readers will be forgiven for thinking that nasty Israelis triggered the Temple Mount crisis by installing metal detectors and security cameras. There’s no mention that they were installed after a deadly terror in which two police officers were killed by Israeli Arabs who had smuggled guns onto the Temple Mount. ABC News did report this at the time . . .
• After a Gaza rocket was fired at Israel, the IDF responded with tank fire on two Hamas positions. The Palestinian rocket landed in an open area causing no damage or harm. Ynet coverage.
• In an interview with the Associated Press, ex-Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan discussed his new relationship with Hamas, the electricity deal he brokered with Egypt, and whether he is cementing Palestinian divisions between Gaza and the West Bank.
• The Washington Post takes a closer look at the murder of Sarah Halimi and why the French Jewish community is up in arms over a prosecutor’s decision not to label it as an act of terror or anti-Semitism.
The decision sent shock waves through the French Jewish community, Europe’s largest. For many, it evinces a political calculus that weighs certain attacks over others.
Commentary/Analysis
• ISIS destroyed Jonah’s Tomb, but not its message.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Amos Harel: Israel and Jordan want to resolve the embassy crisis, but the Jordanian public complicates matters
– Avi Issacharoff: With embassy attack, Jordan’s ties with Israel go from rancid to toxic
– Mohammed Kaabiya: Death in Jerusalem is a price not worth paying for holy site
– Liel Leibovitz: Abbas pay-for-slay program claims three members of a family celebrating birth of a child
– Nahum Barnea: Halamish attack: The writing was all over the wall
– Haim Fogel: Joined by tragedy
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Staring contest on Temple Mount
– Daniel Kurtzer: The hard part on Mideast peace
– Alex Fishman: Israel looking for a way out of crisis without compromising pride
– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror: Hamas’ irrational rationale
– Yoseif Bloch: How do you say ‘terror’?
– Simon Rocker: Are Jews an ethnic minority? The BBC doesn’t think so
Featured image: CC BY-SA Karsten Seiferlin; Dahlan via YouTube/mohammed dahlan;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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