Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinians in Gaza spent the day burying their dead for now. Hamas calls for further marches on the border petered out as a mere 400 Palestinians showed up. Nevertheless, the IDF remained braced for Naqba Day violence to spread to the West Bank.
Shortly before this roundup was published, the IDF announced that 24 of the 60 Palestinians killed were terrorists from Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The army also released details about how it prevented a mass border breach.
2. Israel threatens to resume targeted killings of Hamas leaders if riots continue.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Palestinians managed to trash their side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing. It’s the third time they destroyed equipment and infrastructure at the crossing where Israel transfers food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the Strip. (Who gains? Hamas.)
By the way, Palestinians refused to allow 14 trucks carrying food and diapers to enter Gaza today, the Times of Israel reports. (Medical supplies were allowed through.) The Times notes, “It was not immediately clear why the border officials, who are employed by the Palestinian Authority, would not accept the shipments.”
4. Does the Media Really Understand the Gaza Violence? Thanks to the media, Gaza violence was always likely to be a win-win situation for Hamas. HonestReporting addressed a number of issues not raised in this roundup and the critique is must-read.
5. Your No-Hype Guide To The US Embassy Move To Jerusalem: Lost in the media hoopla over the US embassy move is a solid discussion of the law and history shaping this historic moment. HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz explains in The Federalist.
6. Is the US Embassy Move Legal?: Israel must be treated according to the same legal standards as every other country on earth.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli and US officials inaugurated the US embassy in Jerusalem. President Donald Trump addressed the gathering by a video link. Take your pick of Times of Israel or Haaretz coverage. Outside, police clashed with Israeli Arab MKs protesting the move.
• IDF called yesterday’s Palestinian violence unprecedented, as an estimated 35,000-50,000 Gazans clashed with soldiers and tried to breach the border. Military officials told Israeli media that “Hamas deployed 12 separate terror “cells” to try to breach the border at different spots,” and that they were unable to kidnap or kill any soldiers.
• Talk is cheap, but I wondersparking a new intifada in the West Bank was Hamas’ end game all along.
• The New York Times and Washington Post both noted this point about the Hamas’ drive for casualties:
But the protests appeared to have a more violent edge than in previous weeks. Some young men brought knives and fence cutters. At a gathering point east of Gaza City, organizers urged protestors over loudspeakers to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them.
• The New York Times snippet on Palestinian injury figures made my antennae twitch:
A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus, cast doubt on the casualty numbers from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry; he said a large number of those listed as injured had suffered only tear-gas inhalation.
That may be true. According to the Health Ministry, live fire accounted for 1,204 injuries, bullet fragments caused 133 injuries and 837 injuries were attributed to gas. The breakdown did not account for the remaining injuries.
• A Palestinian baby died of tear gas inhalation because, well, who doesn’t bring the little ones to violent clashes? [Update: Just after this roundup was published, a Gaza doctor said the baby, Layla Ghandour had a pre-existing medical condition and may not have died because of tear gas]. Associated Press quoted Hamas-affiliated Gaza health officials that six of the Palestinians killed by gunshots were minors. Indeed, this description from a New York Times dispatch says a lot about the gulf between Israeli and Palestinian society:
At the rear of the protest area, Aseel Nasser, a determined 12-year-old girl, stood her ground. Facing a video camera operated by her brother, she recited a poem that extolled the virtues of jihad against Zionists. She was undeterred by the risks, explained her father, Khalil Nassar, 46, an education ministry official, who had brought her along. “It would be a great honor to be martyred by the occupation,” he said.
The Los Angeles Times also noted one family’s unsuccessful efforts to keep their daughter from going to the clashes. But where did Shireen learn to talk like this?
Terrified for their daughter’s safety, Shireen Nusralla’s parents locked her in her room Monday so she would not go to the protests. But the 30-year-old woman said she sneaked out through a window.
“I’m not afraid,” she declared as she walked toward a camp east of Gaza City, carrying a large Palestinian flag. “My dream is to get martyred or to kidnap an Israeli soldier.”
• International reactions to yesterday:
– At the United Nations, the US blocked a Security Council statement calling for an investigation into the Gaza violence.
– Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador and recalled its ambassador to Israel. South Africa also recalled its ambassador to Israel.
– The US and Australia blamed Hamas for the casualties.
– Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at the US, calling the embassy a “US settlement outpost.”
– In the Hague, the International Criminal Court expressed “grave concern” that both Israel and Hamas may have committed war crimes.
– Ireland dressed down Israel’s ambassador over the border deaths.
• How the heck can CNN interview Gaza march organizer Ahmad Abu Artema and let him pontificate about non-violence, Gandhi and Martin Luther King without ever asking him to explain the slingshots, firebombs, burning kites and other explosives Palestinians have been bringing his to “non-violent” event?
• The politicization of the Eurovision song competition already began when Dublin Lord Mayor Micheal Mac Donncha told Dublin Live that he thinks Ireland should boycott the 2019 contest, which will be held in Israel. Israeli Arab MK Yousef Jabareen made a similar boycott call.
• Spanish court scraps municipality’s boycott of Israel, calling it unconstitutional and discriminatory.
Commentary
• Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai weighs in on the embassy move, also insisting that Israel only has one capital, and it is Jerusalem.
In all my years as mayor, I have made it clear to every distinguished ambassador that we will provide him and his team with the best service to make them feel at home here, but that I am first and foremost an Israeli who is offended by the fact that his country refuses to recognize my country’s capital—Jerusalem—as Israel’s capital city.
What would the Italians say if the State of Israel decided that Milan rather than Rome was the capital of the boot-shaped country and placed its embassy there?
• The Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) nailed the first paragraph of its staff-ed.
Violence marred the transfer of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv on Monday, but the ceremony was more excuse than cause. The Palestinians from Hamas who protested along the Gaza border with Israel were continuing their eternal war against the existence of the Jewish state more than they care about where America puts its diplomats.
• Tweet of the day goes to Jonathan Schanzer:
Everyone tweeting callous responses to Gaza deaths or spitting venom at Israel for protecting its border should shut it. This is a legitimate crisis, and not one that anyone seems to be able to solve. I dare you to tweet a legit solution not a banality.
— Jonathan Schanzer (@JSchanzer) May 14, 2018
• Plenty of commentary about the embassy move, the latest from Gaza, and the Palestinians
– Avi Issacharoff: For Hamas, dancing on the brink of chaos is a winning tactic
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: View from the Gaza front: Is the IDF acting legally?
– Amos Yadlin: Hamas incites violence to hide its own shortcomings
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Hamas’ march of folly
– Daily Telegraph (staff-ed) There is no Israel-Palestine peace process left for Donald Trump to wreck
Hamas wanted to create a split screen by sending civilians on attack. It worked.
— אייל עופר (@Eyalo365) May 14, 2018
– Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: The conflict in Gaza: Three ways to view it
– Yoav Limor: Gaza teeters on the brink
– Sohrab Ahmari: The media war on Palestinian free will
– Raoul Wootliff: Abandoning split screen, Israeli TV tunes out Gaza to bask in US love
– Sen. Joe Lieberman: Why US embassy Jerusalem move happened and why it matters
• Your daily dose of moral equivalence, courtesy Irish Times cartoonist Martyn Turner:
Here's the latest Martyn Turner https://t.co/upjN5n06i6 pic.twitter.com/njSJwxtmX1
— Irish Times Opinion (@IrishTimesOpEd) May 15, 2018
– John Podhoretz: The embassy moves
– Yossi Beilin: Stop the sulking
– New York Post (staff-ed): Israel defends itself against Palestinian attackers from Gaza
– New York Daily News (staff-ed) Terrorists are chiefly to blame for the tragic loss of life in Gaza
– David Horovitz: As America endorses Israel in Jerusalem, Hamas shows it never will
– Eytan Gilboa: Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem: Fixing a historical diplomatic anomaly
– Bassam Tawil: Western taxpayers funding abuse of Palestinians
– Jennifer Rubin: A new US embassy in Jerusalem, but the same old story
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Omar Barghouti, Ben Wedeman, Dana Milbank, Ben White, Michelle Goldberg, Paul Waldman and Rachel Shabi, plus staff-eds in the Irish Times and The Independent. Sheesh . . .
• Last word goes to Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, who argues that Israel’s status in the Mideast is rising because it’s the only country in the region proving capable of confronting Iran:
As long as the US administration entrusts this new role to Israel, and if it is suitable to the Arab parties, it is likely to expand in the future. Israel is a relatively small country, roughly the size of Kuwait, but it has a superior regional military capability. Taking advantage of tensions and the changing situation, it is establishing a new position for itself.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Maria Biblik; globe CC BY-SA John LeGear; Huldai CC BY-NC-SA Hubert Burda Media; Israeli flag CC BY Justin LaBerge;
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