Today’s Top Stories
1. “Photographers for foreign media walked out of a press conference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull on Monday in protest after security guards demanded the chief photographer of the European Press Agency take his pants off for inspection.”
The Foreign Press Association in Israel rightly denounced the strip search.
The last time photographers boycotted a government event over one of their own being unreasonably strip searched, it was the same photographer, Atef Safadi, in 2016. Safadi is an Israeli citizen with Government Press Office credentials. Time to dust off this post from that incident: Were Photographers Right to Boycott Bibi’s Press Conference?
2. More information emerged about the terror tunnel that crossed into Israel which the IDF destroyed yesterday. Seven Islamic Jihad and Hamas goons were killed, some of whom were reported to be senior commanders. According to an army official quoted by Haaretz:
Most of the Palestinian fatalities were killed while trying to carry out a rescue inside the tunnel and were not killed intentionally by the IDF, Manelis added. He denied that Israel had used chemical weapons.
“It was a controlled explosion within Israeli territory,” he added.
The Palestinians died from smoke inhalation, fumes from explosives and the tunnel collapse, he said. “Most of the casualties were on the Palestinian side” of the border,” he added.
The tunnel, which was still a work in progress, did not yet have an exit point. Ynet delved into the technology used to detect and destroy the tunnel.
See our media critique, Terror Tunnel: The Media’s Selective Omission: As Palestinian terrorist groups accuse the IDF of aggression, some news services failed to mention that the tunnel was destroyed from the Israeli side of the border.
Tweet of the day goes to Arieh Kovler:
If you don't want to die in a secret tunnel under Israel, don't build a secret tunnel under Israel. That's my motto
— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) October 30, 2017
3. Jordanian businessman with long record of anti-Semitic outbursts rewarded with prestigious UN post.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
4. HonestReporting is proud to co-sponsor a special free event — a panel discussion on Anti-Semitism in the European Left-Wing. Speakers include David Gurevich, David Hirsh, Einat Wilf, Avi Mayer and Michal Hatuel-Radoshitzky.
When: Sunday, Nov. 5 (7:00 PM)
Where: Jerusalem’s Menachem Begin Heritage Center
Click for more info.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli schools near the Gaza border cancelled various safety measures and returned to normal, but the army deployed an Iron Dome system in the area as a precaution against retaliatory rocket fire. Hamas and Fatah predictably accused Israel of trying to foil their unity deal, while in a touch of irony, the Los Angeles Times noted:
The tunnels were revealed days before Hamas is expected to hand control of Gaza’s borders to Palestinian Authority officers as part of the Cairo agreement signed on Oct. 12 in an attempt to end the decade-long split between Fatah and Hamas.
• I haven’t seen any coverage of the terror tunnel’s destruction in The Independent, but I did see the paper picked up on this pressing story:
Israeli bar offers women on their periods 25% ‘bloody hour’ discount
• A pro-BDS Arab American activist who works for Amnesty International was barred from entering Israel, tsk.
• New Zealand’s Governor-General Patricia Reddy, the constitutional head of state, met with her Israeli counterpart, President Reuven Rivlin ahead of commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheva. It’s the first time the top Kiwi has visited Israel.
While we’re talking kiwi, the Jerusalem Post reports that New Zealand’s largest utility company “to prevent summertime blackouts and cut down on carbon emissions.” Learn more about New Zealand’s role in the Battle of Beersheva.
100 Years to the Battle of #Beersheba.
Today we remember the brave forces of #Anzac that liberated Beersheba during WW1. #Australia pic.twitter.com/EwPKb0MapN
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) October 31, 2017
• In fresh snub, UAE gives commemorative medals to all UNESCO members but Israel
• Soldiers thwarted a Palestinian car-ramming attack near the settlement of Halamish.
Commentary/Analysis
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels on the Balfour declaration’s 100th anniversary . . .
– Jonathan Tobin: Balfour, the Palestinians — and no peace
– Jeffrey Salkin: Balfour 100: You don’t have to be Jewish to love Israel
– Dr. Reuven Berko: ‘The criminal Balfour declaration’
– Lyn Julius: Boris has misread the Balfour declaration
– Rick Richman: How the Balfour Declaration has emerged at the crux of the war against Israel
The argument for Palestinian statehood is anchored in a fundamentally moral claim for national self-determination. Yet when it comes to securing the same right for the Kurdish people, the West has been shamefully and strangely silent. Western democracies offered no support for the Kurdistan regional government’s independence referendum in late September, and they have not spoken out against the Iraqi and Turkish governments’ threats to crush the KRG’s bid for statehood by force.
When officials in the EU or the US give a reason for opposing Kurdish independence, it always comes down to realpolitik. Iraq’s territorial integrity must be preserved, we are told, and independence for the KRG could destabilise Turkey and Iran, owing to those countries’ sizeable Kurdish minorities.
But these arguments merely underscore a double standard. Moral claims for self-determination are justly raised in the case of the Palestinians, but they are entirely absent from the international discourse about Kurdistan. . .
National self-determination is a universal right that should not be denied to populations suffering under oppressive non-democratic regimes. The same arguments that rightly apply to the Palestinians should apply equally to the Kurds. Human-rights activists who demonstrate for Palestinian statehood should be no less vocal on behalf of Kurdish statehood. And human-rights claims — unless they are applied selectively as part of a hypocritical sham — should always trump realpolitik.
• Professor Martin Kramer has taken to Facebook to debunk various myths about the Balfour Declaration. I liked number four in his series about the British failure to consult the Palestinians before issuing the declaration.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Tunnel explosion timing affected by Gaza political situation
– Avi Issacharoff: Despite huge tunnel setback, Islamic Jihad likely won’t start war with Israel
– Amos Harel: Israeli strike on cross-border tunnel may have been too successful
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Palestinian ‘peace’
– Yossi Melman: Israeli deterrence in a new Middle East
– Mohammad Amjad Hossain: Are Fatah and Hamas united for the sake of peace?
– Eitan Haber: Why Israel should talk to Iran
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Trey Ratcliff; Safadi via Twitter/Atef Safadi; Peshmerga CC BY Kurdishstruggle;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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