Today’s Top Stories
1. Gaza tensions sharply escalated overnight when Palestinians fired a rocket which hit a house in Beersheva. Seven people, including three children, were treated for shock. A second rocket fired at the Tel Aviv area landed in the sea. The IDF retaliated with air strikes on 20 terror targets. As this roundup was published, Egypt reportedly had brokered a ceasefire, though neither Cairo nor Jerusalem offered any corroboration.
The IDF rejected Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s joint denial of responsibility, saying only those two terror groups had the kind of Grad rocket that was fired. Beersheva schools were closed for the day and the army is examining why the Iron Dome didn’t fire an interceptor. Miri Tamano, a single mother of three whose Beersheva home was hit, appealed to the public for help.
More at the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Ynet and Israel HaYom.
2. Defying Washington, the UN General Assembly gave ‘Palestine’ extra rights allowing it to head a major bloc in 2019. The Times of Israel explains:
Palestine’s delegates will be able co-sponsor proposals and amendments, make statements, and raise procedural motions. They will have these extra rights for the duration of its chairmanship of the Group of 77, the largest bloc of developing nations at the UN. The Palestinians will assume the bloc’s presidency on January 1, 2019, and hold it for one year.
Palestine — which is not a member state of the UN but has observer state status — was chosen in July to head the so-called G77 plus China, a consortium now consisting of 134 nations that often speaks in one voice at the General Assembly.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Let’s not hyperventilate over what are — at this point — incremental developments in Australia and Romania. (Props to Buzzfeed for best coverage of the Australian development.)
– Australia considering controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
– Australia may also recognize East Jerusalem as future Palestinian capital
– Romanian PM to consider moving embassy to Jerusalem
Israel and the Palestinians
• The International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, warned that Israeli plans to raze an illegally built Bedouin village could constitute a war crime. Last month, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the Bedouins failed demonstrate ownership of the land and allowed an injunction against the demolition to expire.
• According to Israeli media reports, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot met with his Saudi counterpart, Gen. Fayyad bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili, on the sidelines of a Washington conference.
• Israel’s Supreme Court heard Lara Alqasem’s appeal against her deportation. The justices didn’t indicate when they would issue their ruling.
Alqasem, a 22-year-old American of Palestinian descent obtained a student visa from the Israeli consulate in Miami and was accepted into a graduate studies program at Hebrew University. She is free to leave Israel, but is staying in a holding facility at Ben Gurion Airport while she wages a legal battle.
• Without offering any specifics, White House envoy Jason Greenblatt told Ynet that President Donald Trump’s peace plan will “unify” the West Bank and Gaza. Greenblatt sought to debunk Palestinian claims that Trump’s yet-to-be-revealed initiative will cement the separation of the Fatah-run West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
• The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) denied reports that it banned Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, from televising qualifying games to West Bank settlements.
• A secret Israeli-US military delegation reportedly visited Ukraine to train against Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system. Israeli media reports were based on Syrian and Russian reports, so take it with a heavy dose of skepticism.
• This video noted by MEMRI has me going hmmmmmm
Fatah Revolutionary Council Member Abdel-Elah Atira: The Number of Palestinians Brought in to the West Bank and Gaza following the Oslo Accords Equals the Number of Palestinian Refugees in 1948 pic.twitter.com/AQOiRLSFii
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 15, 2018
• Ireland’s High Court rejected an Israeli woman’s attempt to obtain refugee status. The woman, who has not been identified, “fled Israel after being called for military service because she conscientiously objected to participating in military actions against the Palestinian people.” Irish Times coverage.
Window Into Israel
• Attorney General: Law can distinguish between terror convicts and other prisoners as Knesset mulls legislation that would allow for the early release of certain prisoners.
Israel is expected to release 300 prisoners in line with a recent High Court ruling which said that overcrowded prison conditions infringed on prisoners’ human rights. Around 1,000 prisoners, possibly including individuals convicted of terror and other security offenses, are expected to be released when the law takes force on December 20.
• “Facebook’s Israel office has removed thousands of fake accounts ahead of the October 30 municipal election at the request of the National Cyber Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
• The Christian Science Monitor takes a closer look at a wave of Arab women running in local elections.
• Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu’s legal defense against several corruption investigations became more complicated with death of their chief lawyer, Jacob Weinroth. He was known for representing other Israeli politicians in high-profile cases. The 71-year-old Weinroth battled cancer for several months, but there were no signs of an imminent demise.
Around the World
• Drip drip drip: Police are probing attack on two Jewish protesters outside ‘pro-Corbyn’ meeting in London that left a woman hospitalized “after being repeatedly kicked in the head.”
• Drip drip drip: “A new Antisemitism Monitoring Centre set up to record and process complaints relating to Jew-hate within Jeremy Corbyn’s party has received nearly 500 submissions just a week after it was launched.”
• Religious hate crimes in England and Wales jumped 40 percent in the past year, according to a government report picked up by the Evening Standard and Jewish Chronicle. The stats found that 64% of all hate crimes targeted Jews and Muslims.
• Drip drip drip: ‘Free Palestine scrawled on Holocaust educational advertisement in London.
• Second Orthodox Jewish man attacked in Brooklyn in two days.
• A Berlin rally against racism featured speakers calling for Israel’s destruction and urging support for BDS. An estimated 200,000 came to the Saturday gathering, some of whom held signs with the logo of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group.
https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1052325842100121601
• Antisemitic fliers blaming Jews for assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh were found posted outside a Reno synagogue.
• Antisemitic, racist Fliers supporting the Ku Klux Klan left on On residents’ lawns in Philadelphia suburb.
Commentary
• Does the human rights community have the guts to launch a BDS campaign against Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Naaaah. Jonathan Tobin articulates why:
Nor is the human rights community – that expends so much energy trying to smear Israel as an apartheid state – likely to call for a BDS campaign against the nation that is the guardian of Islam’s holy places.
Saudi Arabia is both a cruel theocracy and a corrupt family business that is deserving of the harshest criticisms for its conduct. But the double standard by which the one Jewish state on the planet is judged differently than the rest of the world is what has inspired the BDS movement, not an abstract devotion to the principles of human rights.
• Tweet of the day goes to @ignis_fatum:
It seems that Hamas and the PIJ want to have it both ways. Pressure #Israel by firing rockets into Gush Dan and Be’er Sheva and then make innocent statements like nothing happened .#Gaza https://t.co/obYQjQJIcy
— parallel_universe #GetVaccinated #MaskUp (@ignis_fatum) October 17, 2018
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Ron Ben Yishai: Hamas’s dangerous games demand different kind of reaction
– Dr. Hanan Shai: Israel, Hamas fighting war of attrition
– Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian battle against a plan that does not exist
– Stephen Flatow: America wouldn’t let her in, so why should Israel?
– Carly Pildis: Anti-Zionism has no place in the Progressive movement
– Gil Troy: Beware of BDS derangement syndrome
– David Shayne: Sorry, but BDS is anti-Israel – really!
– Benny Avni: Punish the Saudis — but not by rewarding Iran
Featured image: CC BY-SA Japanexperterna.se; gavel CC BY-SA wp paarz; Corbyn via YouTube/Slugger O’Toole; Khashoggi via YouTube/Al Jazeera English;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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