Today’s Top Stories
1. Two soldiers, a Border Police officer and a pedestrian were injured in a car-ramming attack in the northern coastal town of Acre this morning. The driver, an Israeli Arab reportedly from Shfaram, was shot and critically wounded by a responding police officer. Security footage caught the gruesome moment of impact for one of the victims.
Graphic CCTV footage of Acco suspected car ramming attack in which a border policeman and two others were injured. pic.twitter.com/zcy7ainLdx
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) March 4, 2018
2. A Lebenese actor accused of spying for Israel’s Mossad was cleared of charges as Beirut began investigating whether he was framed by an intelligence official who is alleged to have hired a hacker to fabricate evidence. Another not-so-great moment in public discourse on Twitter.
The hacker, reportedly an informant for the ISF, is said to have created fake social media accounts both in Itani’s name and in the names of made-up Israelis, forging conversations between them.
It is presumed that Hobeiche acted in revenge for an incident in which Itani shared a screenshot of a tweet that Hobeiche had favorited.
3. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to the US for a meeting with President Donald Trump and an address to the largest American pro-Israel group, the New York Times and Jerusalem Post preview what’s on the PM’s agenda.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Leading Palestinian news agency marks Purim holiday with ‘blood libel’ accusation.
• Despite having voted in favor of resolution condemning U.S. move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which urges states to refrain from operating missions in Jerusalem, eight European states maintain Palestinian consulates or embassies there,” reports Israel HaYom.
• Times of Israel: In overture to Hamas, PA includes 20,000 of its employees in budget.
• Visitors to Jerusalem’s Old City may notice a new security tower next to the Damascus Gate. It was built in response to a spate of Palestinian stabbing attacks in the gate’s vicinity, including last year’s fatal stabbing of policewoman Hadas Malka.
• Britain’s Ambassador to Israel David Quarrey discussed the royal visit with Globes.
• The IDF released footage of Islamic State operatives in Syria training kids to kids to use weapons near the Israeli border.
• Israel’s mission creep in Syria raises nightmare scenario of wider war. The Globe & Mail discussed the situation with a Syrian soldier-turned-rebel being treated in an Israeli hospital, one of his Israeli doctors, Golan Druze, and an Israeli intelligence official
Police Probe PM
• Meanwhile, the Wall St. Journal runs down the latest on the various police investigations.
Around the World
• Jewish groups outraged by BDS founder Omar Barghouti’s address to EU Parliament.
• Ken Livingstone suspended by Labour again – this time indefinitely pending a party investigation.
• ‘Zionists not welcome’: San Francisco State U. apology to Jewish community sparks backlash
• Top Iraqi newsman issues unprecedented apology to Iraqi Jews regarding their dispossession and expulsion during the 1941 Farhud.
• Where is the right to free speech for Israel advocates on campus, academics ask.
• Belgian watchdog denounces artist’s ‘anti-Semitic’ caricature of White House adviser Stephen Miller
• Reuters: Polish group sues Argentine paper under new Holocaust law
• Will Israel’s clash with Poland affect Holocaust commemoration trips?
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: IDF reservist Amit Deri describes the media circus of Palestinian clashes in the West Bank — in this case, Hebron:
The next day, Saturday, my men and I, about 100 of us in total, arrived to find about 400 Palestinian rioters throwing Molotov cocktails, hurling large rocks, attacking us with slingshots, and burning tires. They were documented by something like 40 cameras representing every foreign press outlet you can think of. They were shouting slogans about Muhammad’s army coming to avenge itself on the Jews, and pranced bravely in front of the photographers, knowing full well that the IDF’s strict regulations prevent us from doing much more than trying to disperse the violent mob by shooting canisters of tear gas.
We did the best we could to keep anyone, Israeli and Palestinian, from getting seriously injured. And then, magic: A short while into the demonstration, the media, getting what it came for, decided to leave. As soon as the last cameraman was gone, the very same Palestinian rioters who were, just a moment earlier, so passionate and furious and violent tossed aside their gasoline-soaked rags and their boulders and cheerfully walked away. They weren’t interested in a real confrontation. They weren’t truly mad. They were putting on a show for the press. An hour later, a friend sent me a photograph of myself, just published by the Arab media, holding a tear gas gun and looking menacing.
(Related reading: Photographer Reveals Market, Not Truth, Behind Conflict Images)
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels over the announced royal visit:
– Amb. Mark Regev: Prince William’s visit – a testament to good ties
– Anshel Pfeffer: First royal visit to Israel is sign of Britain’s diminished status in the world
– Melanie Phillips: About time!
– Raf Sanchez: Duke of Cambridge’s visit to Israel will end a 70-year royal snub
– Andrew Roberts: Royal visit to Israel breaks a long-standing taboo
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): What Prince William’s visit means for British-Israel relations
• Last but not least, journalists Tom Gross and Emily Rose discussed the significance of the royal visit with i24 News.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Danger in the north: PM Netanyahu must push Trump to act
– Seymur Mammadov: Will Iran and Israel clash on Syrian soil?
– Amir Taheri: Trump the deal-maker and the Middle East
– Father Raymond de Souza: Jerusalem’s mayor picks a fight with Christianity — and loses fast
– Michael Danby: BDS and Roger Waters: Comfortably dumb
– Jonathan Tobin: Why left-wing anti-Semitism matters
– Majid Rafizadeh: Punished for not chanting “death to America, Israel, Britain”
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: The ‘ugly crime” of a school curriculum
– Manfred Gerstenfeld: Swiss government neglects security of country’s Jews
– Lawrence Franklin: Iran and Hezbollah’s terror in Argentina
Featured image: CC BY Giuseppe Milo; Sara Netanyahu via YouTube/IsraeliPM; March of the Living via YouTube/Jewish Remembrance; clash via YouTube/euronews (in English);
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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