Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinian protesters disrupted a business seminar in Bethlehem which the U.S. helped organize, Reuters reports, damaging a consular vehicle as it sped away from protesters who threw tomatoes and eggs. And in the nearby UNRWA-run Aida refugee camp, Palestinians court-martialed and executed effigies of US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Noting the participation of Fatah members in the “trial” and “execution,” Bassam Tawil says the incitement was a “green light” for attacks on Americans.
In fact, the mock trial and “execution” of Trump and Pence gives a green light to Palestinians physically to target Americans.
This incitement against the US should come as a surprise to no one. The activists — who are burning photos and effigies of Trump and Pence and American flags — listen with rapt attention to the anti-American rhetoric coming from Palestinian Authority leaders. Trump and Pence are vilified on a daily basis by Palestinian leaders and media outlets . . .
Most importantly, this is not only a show of disrespect towards the US and its leaders: it is in fact a call for terrorism against American citizens. In the world of the Palestinians, any world leader who does not hate Israel or dares to challenge the Palestinian narrative is defined as the enemy. How will any of Trump’s Middle East envoys ever be able to visit Ramallah or Bethlehem after this wave of incitement?
1/2 Bethlehem Demonstration: Effigies of Trump and Pence "Executed” and Torched in Protest of U.S. Freeze on UNRWA Funding pic.twitter.com/hQY4eQQaZT
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 29, 2018
2. The Irish senate is weighing legislation to criminalize trade with Israeli settlements and create a spillover effect in the US. As this roundup was published, the vote was due to be held tonight.
If enacted, it could put leading U.S. companies with Irish subsidiaries to a choice between violating the Irish law or violating the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, which require U.S. firms to refuse to participate in foreign boycotts that the United States does not sanction.
In addition to running afoul of U.S. federal law, the bill would subject companies to U.S. state-level sanctions, violate European Union and international law, threaten Ireland’s vital economic links to the United States, and hinder the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
But the Irish Times reports that divisions within the governing coalition may prevent the bill’s passage. And how’s this for an inappropriately opinionizing headline?
See Eugene Kontorovich‘s response:
Bill would be great incentive for aliyah to Irish Jews: if they visit the Kotel, or have a glass of Golan Heights wine on a visit to Israel; or learn at an old City yeshiva – they could be put in jail on their return.
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) January 30, 2018
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. The PLO is now urging Arab-Israelis to join in civil unrest ahead of Friday’s “Day of Rage” against Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, per The Media Line.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The chief rabbi of the Western Wall apologized for segregating journalists by gender during Vice President Pence’s visit last week. In a letter to sent to Globes, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch promised improvements but says rules won’t change. More at the Washington Post.
In a series of Facebook posts, Cozin — a journalist accredited with Israel’s Government Press Office, and a regular at the Prime Minister’s Office — said he initially agreed to an extensive body search.
But when he was asked to remove his pants, Cozin refused and was subsequently barred from covering the weekly cabinet meeting.
In addition to the Western Wall mishap, an accredited Finnish reporter was prevented from covering the VP’s meeting with Netanyahu after refusing to be strip searched.
• The Israeli embassy in Amman is days away from reopening, according to Israeli media reports. Several embassy staffers are said to have already returned to their positions but no replacement for Ambassador Einat Schlein has been appointed.
According to an assessment from a senior security official, some 420 of the 1,027 terrorists imprisoned in Israel released as part of exchange deal for captured IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit in November 2011 have found their way back into the circle of terrorism and violence. Some 210 were re-arrested, and 100 were put back behind bars. Terrorists freed in the Schalit deal have directly or indirectly been involved in the murder of seven Israelis . . .
A triumvirate of Schalit-deal terrorists – Sinwar, Tawfiq Abu Naim and Zuhair Jabarin, as well as Arouri and the three regional commanders – now controls Gaza. According to reports from the Palestinian Authority, they are working to carry out attacks in various parts of the West Bank and their main goal is another abduction of an Israeli. Sinwar, Abu Naim and Jabarin were all released from prison in Israel before their sentences were up. These three, along with some of their comrades, star in a popular video clip that Hamas released titled “From prison to power,” in which they express their commitment to carrying out another abduction, and they are trying their best.
• The PA leadership is floundering here. Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the PA will take Trump’s peace plan to the International Court of Justice (!?) while PA President Mahmoud Abbas called for an African role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
• Breaking a Palestinian boycott of meetings with Israeli officials, PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah will meet with Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on Sunday. The PA broke off high level contacts with Israel and US over Trump’s Jerusalem declaration in December. According to Israeli media reports picked up by the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel, Hamdallah initiated the meeting “to try and avert a financial crisis.”
• A Palestinian was arrested apparently trying to sneak into the West Bank settlement of Itamar wearing IDF-style uniforms. While searching for a second Palestinian wearing similar clothes, soldiers found six Molotov cocktails. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• An Israeli judge ordered the dissolution of an eastern Jerusalem-based non-governmental organization for financing terror and donor fraud. The Committee of Agricultural Work had funneled millions of dollars to the Gaza-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. More at Israel HaYom.
• Slovenia’s parliament is expected to recognize Palestinian statehood in a symbolic measure.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow where he discussed with Russian President Vladmir Putin Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and Lebanon, military coordination, as well as US efforts to bolster the Iranian nuclear deal. More at the Times of Israel and Ynet.
Around the World
• The municipality of Frankfurt is severing ties with banks that enable boycotts of Israel. The Jerusalem Post explains the significance:
Frankfurt is the first German city to sanction banks and financial institutions for providing services to the BDS campaign targeting Israel. The Frankfurt decision to penalize financial entities could have far-reaching implications for the scores of BDS organizations that operate in Germany.
Frankfurt, with a population of nearly 720,000, is located in the state of Hesse and is considered the banking capital of Germany.
• Poll shows Democrats increasingly ditching Netanyahu, not Israel, experts say.
• Former London mayor and suspended Labour party politician Ken Livingstone repeated claims that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis.
The Labour chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism said Mr Livingstone’s comments formed a deliberate pattern, and demanded his expulsion.
On Saturday, International Holocaust Memorial Day, Mr Livingstone, 72, a former mayor of London, appeared in a programme called Has the Holocaust been exploited to oppress others? on the Iranian state-owned channel Press TV.
Ken Livingstone observes Holocaust Memorial Day by appearing on state TV of Holocaust-denying regime: Holocaust hijacked by Zionism, chats with Jew-hating callers https://t.co/KL8RptiMa1
— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) January 28, 2018
Commentary
• What made IDF Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis dramatically write an op-ed published in Lebanese media denouncing Iran and Hezbollah? Ron Ben-Yishai takes a closer look at the Israeli army’s first direct and official appeal to the Lebanese public.
– Yair Lapid: Treblinka: The city of the dead
– Cnaan Liphshiz: Historical inaccuracies on both sides of the ‘Polish death camp’ debate.
– Tony Barber: Poland’s government exploits nationalistic grievances
– Ian O’Doherty: Why shouldn’t we remember the Holocaust?
– John Bercow: Anti-Semitism must be called out every day
– Adnan Oktar: The role of propaganda in the Holocaust
– The Australian (staff-ed): Holocaust must not be denied
– Daily Telegraph (staff-ed): The Holocaust must never be forgotten
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Bassam Tawil: Incitement gives Palestinians green light to target Americans
– Moshe Yaalon, Leehe Friedman: Israel and the Arab States: A historic opportunity to normalize relations?
– Zalman Shoval: Not a cost-free exercise
– Alexander Apfel: Netanyahu the likely winner in peace talks
– Dani Dayan: Anti-Zionism is just anti-Semitism by another name
– Pierre Rehov: UNRWA: The UN agency that creates Palestinian refugees
– Gerald Steinberg: Israel and UNRWA’s emergency meeting
– David Harris: An open letter to the foreign minister of Slovenia
– Hanin Ghaddar: Hezbollah has destroyed the Lebanon I once knew (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-ND chinatown news; Shalit exchange via YouTube/CBS News; Hamdallah via YouTube/Watania Media Agency; Frankfurt CC BY-SA drakestraw67; Auschwitz CC BY-NC Benjamin Griffiths;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
