Today’s Top Stories
1. Authorities in Morocco failed to provide Israel’s judo team with visas ahead of the world championship, which begins in Marrakech on November 11.
The president of the International Judo Federation said he would cancel the entire world championship if the Israeli delegation would not receive its visas.
More at Israel HaYom.
With Israeli athletes getting snubbed in various ways by United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Malaysia, Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt, why the heck do world sports bodies allow these Arab countries to continue hosting or participating in sporting events that Israelis also compete in?
2. Congress is mulling legislation that would change how US universities deal with anti-Semitism — by requiring the Education Department to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. The Times of Israel was on hand as the bill’s supporters and critics testified to the House Judiciary Committee:
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA) would require federally funded education programs to employ the State Department’s standards in assessing whether civil rights laws have been violated when dealing with hate crimes.
The controversy over the legislation stems from its provisions regarding Israel. The ASAA would ban the Department of Education from “claiming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions” and “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
Opponents of the legislation argue the clauses on Israel would infringe free speech on campus.
3. It’s been a week since Hamas ceded control of Gaza’s border crossings to the PA, and the two are already bickering. Haaretz explains:
Hamas expressed anger at Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s comments that the PA couldn’t guarantee the crossings’ orderly operation without assuming full security control over Gaza . . .
People in the Gaza Strip speculated Tuesday on whether the PA was referring to control not only of the crossings but to the entire issue of security in the Strip, which has also yet to be arranged. Policemen employed by Hamas are still operating in the area.
This assessment only increased the frustration and anger of Palestinians in Gaza, who recognize that any dispute between the factions only delays the opening and proper functioning of the crossings – especially Rafah, which is the Gazans’ main artery.
Another issue under dispute is the model for operating the Rafah crossing, which the PA supports and would see European observers placed at the crossing, which was the practice until 2007, when Hamas assumed control of the Strip.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
4. On the i24 News program The Spin Room with Ami Kaufman, HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz along with MK Akram Hasson and journalist Tami Molad Hayo discussed Israeli-Druze ties, the peace process, and more.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel instructed its envoys to diplomatically campaign for the world to curb the activities of Iran and Hezbollah. According to Israeli media reports:
“The events in Lebanon, and the ballistic missile launched by [Yemen’s rebel] Houthis toward the Riyadh international airport, should cause [the world] to increase the pressure on Iran and Hezbollah on a range of issues, from ballistic missile production to its efforts at regional subversion,” the foreign ministry memo read.
• PA police chief: Security cooperation with Israel back on track.
• The Palestinians — who are already busy targeting the Giro d’Italia for a boycott — are still trying to put Israel on the back foot at FIFA. PA soccer officials got a court date for their FIFA case against Israel.
• Palestinian teen caught smuggling knife into Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Around the World
• The plot thickens: Downing St. reportedly knew about Priti Patel’s meetings with Israeli officials after all, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
But the JC understands, from two different sources, that Ms Patel did disclose the meeting with Mr Rotem but was told by Number 10 not to include it as it would embarrass the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
• Following up on the dust up over Tzipi Hotovely’s speaking appearance at Princeton, MK Michael Oren, a Princeton alumnus, urged Israeli officials to boycott the campus Hillel and called for the firing of its director, Rabbi Julie Roth.
Meanwhile Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut and Roth took to the Jerusalem Post’s op-ed section to apologize for cancelling the Deputy Foreign Minister’s speech. Hotovely’s speech went on as scheduled under the auspices of the campus Chabad.
• I think this is an important wake up call from prominent pro-Israel activist Hen Mazzig.
• Quote of the day:
“Tracking a missile is much easier than tracking a ball,” he said. “A missile is more predictable.”
Gal Oz, of SportVU, a startup whose system of high resolution tracking cameras and player tracking technology revolutionized the NBA. Interviewed by the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter).
• Conductor Zubin Mehta discusses Wagner in Israel, Palestinian musicians and more with the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter). Mehta is due to step down the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019, ending what will be 50 years with the ensemble.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Evelyn Gordon: Why Israel threatened military action to save an enemy
– Joel Finkelstein: On Hotovely and the dangers of Princeton’s moral panic
– Jeff Jacoby: Spain clamors for a ‘two-state solution’ — but not in Catalonia
– Zvi Bar’el: Israel’s swapping bodies for bodies isn’t enough
– Khaled Abu Toameh: The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah connection
– Dov Zakheim: Jared Kushner, Mohammed bin Salman, and Benjamin Netanyahu are up to something
– Shoula Romano Horing: Why Israelis are successful fighting terror
– Shmuel Rosner: How did ‘peace’ become a dirty word in Israel?
– Col. Richard Kemp: Israel as a strategic asset of the West
– Alan Dershowitz: The Daily Californian refuses to publish my response to an anti-Semitic op-ed
– Ron Kampeas: What Saudi and Lebanese political turmoil means for Israel
– Thomas Donnelly: Israel’s coming war with Hezbollah
– Giora Eiland: Lebanon’s last chance to save itself
– Michael Totten: Hezbollah consolidates its stranglehold over Lebanon
– Roger Boyes: Stop Iran’s march through the Middle East
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND program monkey; Washington CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons/Wcwoolf; Mehta CC BY-NC; Municipalidad de Santiago; Lebanon CC BY ItzaFineDay;
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