Today’s Top Stories
1. i24 News reports that the US has quietly frozen aid to the Palestinian Authority. This comes in the wake of last month’s Taylor Force Act, which is intended to pressure the PA to end its stipends for terrorists and their families.
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide told i24NEWS, “Our understanding is that US funding to the West Bank and Gaza is on hold pending an administration review.
“Separately, i24NEWS understands that the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID — the American international development agency — has not received its budget for the upcoming fiscal year and therefore has not been able to put its projects out to tender . . .
The withholding of USAID’s total budget as well as third-party projects means the administration is taking an expansive interpretation of what assistance “directly benefits” the PA, viewing humanitarian projects that would otherwise need to be paid for by the PA as constituting direct assistance to that organization.
A Palestinian official confirmed the report, saying the Trump administration had told the PA in mid-January 2018 that it was reexamining its Palestinian aid budget.
2. Arab diplomats told visiting US envoys they will support the Trump administration’s peace plan regardless of whether or not PA chief Mahmoud Abbas is on board. Israel HaYom explains:
Senior officials in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met with White House adviser Jared Kushner and U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt in recent days and reportedly told them that, having become fed up with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ rejectionism, they will not stand in Trump’s way when he presents his Middle East peace plan. . .
A top Egyptian official told Israel Hayom Sunday that the moderate Arab nations’ position was “unanimous” and that Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would not oppose an attempt by Washington to go over Abbas’ head in this case.
However, officials in all four nations made it clear to both American envoys that they would not be party to any deal that compromises Palestinian interests.
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3. As this roundup was published, Prince William was due to land at Ben-Gurion Airport for his historic visit to Israel. It’s the first official royal visit to Israel. The Duke of Cambridge spent the day in Jordan.
4. Video: Hackathon at the Gaza Border: Israelis came together to brainstorm creative solutions to Gaza’s terror balloons and kites.
In the News
• The IDF blamed Hamas for having direct involvement in the preparation and launch of terror balloons. The army named names and released surveillance footage of a masked figures preparing balloons from a Hamas position along the Gaza border. More at the Times of Israel and Ynet.
Hamas terrorists prepare and launch arson and explosive device-laden kites and balloons, targeting Israeli territory from the #Gaza Strip.
Read more:https://t.co/6cgUqJXny7 pic.twitter.com/rm1PtjwM1K
— Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) June 24, 2018
• The New York Times took a closer look at Khan al-Ahmar. That’s the unauthorized Bedouin town facing a Supreme Court-ordered demolition. The report gives the false impression that Israeli development of the land Khan al-Amar sits on (known as E1) destroys the contiguity and viability of a Palestinian state.
With the start of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, the Bedouins’ presence took on great geopolitical significance: If Israel were to develop the area, as the government has long threatened, it would bolster Maale Adumim’s contiguity with greater Jerusalem. But it would also effectively slice the West Bank into pieces, isolating Arab East Jerusalem and dividing Ramallah in the north from Bethlehem in the south — leaving a future Palestinian state to try to stitch itself together with tunnels or bridges through Israeli territory.
The West Bank “waistline” between Maale Adumim and the Dead Sea would be roughly 15 km wide. That’s the same width as Israel’s narrowest point, between the Israeli coastal city of Netanya and the PA town of Tulkarem. That waistline has never caused any issues for the contiguity or viability of the state of Israel. The New York Times itself has acknowledged this in a 2012 correction.
Whatever one's stance on the legal and moral issues, Israeli development of the land Khan al-Amar sits on (a.k.a. E1) would NOT threaten the contiguity or viability of a future Palestinian state. @nytimes @halbfinger https://t.co/Jeigt8c0Di pic.twitter.com/Zy6cuxa8e2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 25, 2018
• Pro-Assad troops took over an abandoned UN post in the demilitarized area of the Israel-Syria border, according to Israeli media reports.
• Bulgaria to put honorary consulate in Jerusalem, but not an embassy, the Jerusalem Post reported.
• Without any advance warning or explanation after the fact, Facebook and Twitter shut down a number of accounts belonging to Hezbollah.
• New Arkansas law takes aim at boycotts of Israel
Window into Israel
• Prime Minister vowed to push ahead with Orthodox conscription bill despite threats from Haredi coalition partners to oppose the legislation and even topple the government. The brinkmanship continues . . .
[Netanyahu] brushed off the Haredi threats to the coalition, saying, “I don’t want elections, but I’m not afraid of elections. If there are elections, I’ll be okay.”
• The latest with Sara Netanyahu’s indictment makes my head spin. Ynet has the latest dish on recordings made by a state’s witness:
Recordings made by state’s witness Nir Hefetz, who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara’s media advisor, reveal that the family had planned to renovate its villa in Caesarea at the state’s expense, that suitcases filled with clothes had been taken abroad for dry cleaning services, and that the legal advisor of the Prime Minister’s Office had tried to mislead reporters.
• For a sense of the domestic commentary, see Sima Kadmon and Yonah Jeremy Bob‘s takes on Sara Netanyahu’s indictment. David Sedley weighs in on Jerusalem’s upcoming mayoral elections.
Commentary
• Over at The Guardian, readers’ editor Paul Chadwick weighs in on the paper’s decision to spike a cartoon editors deemed antisemitic and offensive.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Melanie Phillips: Prince Wiliam comes to Israel under a Foreign Office cloud
– Justin Cohen: William’s visit to Israel has been a long time coming
– Ron Ben-Yishai: War or an agreement: Israel’s critical dilemma vis-a-vis Gaza
– Jonathan Tobin: Learning the lessons of Gaza
– Dan Feferman: The Gazan kite offensive and the arc of human progress
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Pressuring the Palestinians from above
– Yaakov Katz: Moving the goalposts: The much-anticipated US peace plan
– Amnon Lord: Ramallah is unavailable
– Yoram Ettinger: Quitting UN Human Rights Council serves US interests
– Denis MacEoin: Bishop Graham Tomlin and the demonization of Israel
Featured image: CC BY-SA tedeytan;; US Capitol via YouTube/US Capitol; coat of arms via Wikimedia Commons;
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