Today’s Top Stories
1. Later this month, Mahmoud Abbas will visit European Union officials in Brussels where he is expected to seek European backing for unilateral statehood moves and increased aid to offset threatened cuts from the US. More at the Times of Israel, which picked up on Arab media coverage.
2. Gaza is still roiling over a video of a Palestinian member of Islamic State in the Sinai executing another Palestinian accused of collaborating with Hamas. The New York Times reports that two Gaza families, falling in line with Hamas, have disowned their sons.
In Gaza, the video’s horror is intimate.
Mr. Zamli, the video’s main figure, grew up in the Shabora refugee camp in the Palestinian part of Rafah, which straddles the border with Egypt. The man who fired the pistol, Muhammad al-Dajani, from Gaza City, was a Hamas fighter who defected to the Islamic State from Hamas’s military wing. A Hamas official in Gaza identified the accused smuggler as Mousa Abuzmat and said he came from the Egyptian side of Rafah, just across the border.
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3. Turkish Jews denounce anti-Semitic tabloid’s claim that ‘Jewish businessmen’ manipulated financial markets ahead of failed 2016 coup.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach in a drive-by shooting earlier this week “appears to have been the act of a skilled terror cell, not a random crime of opportunity,” Haaretz reports.
Most recent local terrorist shootings have homemade Carl Gustav (“Carlo”) submachine guns. Shevach was presumably shot by guns of standard manufacture — either one or two. More than 20 bullets were fired during the incident, presumably from a passing car driven by a person who was not involved in the shooting. Similar previous attacks were preceded by intelligence-gathering. The perpetrators may have used a lookout, stationed on the access road to Havat Gilad, who spied an easy mark — an Israeli, driving alone after dark.
Haaretz adds that PA security forces are cooperating with Israel to find the killers.
Around the World
• Can German officials fight anti-Semitism among new immigrants by requiring them to visit Nazi concentration camps?
• Support for Israel among young evangelicals is still high, but it’s slipping, says survey picked up by the JTA.
Commentary
• The Irish Times is free to disagree with Israel’s blacklist of organizations supporting Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). It’s reasonable to debate how much impact BDS has on the Israeli economy or whether the blacklist will ultimately strengthen or weaken the boycotters. But I beg to differ with this line:
By responding with a ban that dispenses with democratic norms and shows a contempt for free speech, however, the Israeli leadership does immense damage to its own case.
My colleague, Daniel Pomerantz debated this very issue on i24 News with Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now earlier this week.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Alex Joffe, Asaf Romirowsky: The UN agency that keeps Palestinians from prospering (click via Twitter)
– Daniel Pipes: How 99 percent of ‘Palestine refugees’ are fake
– David Makovsky: Why a big wave of European countries recognizing Palestine is fast approaching
– Sever Plocker: Trump’s Mideast ‘achievement’: A growing rift with the Palestinians
– Yoni Ben Menachem: Palestinian capital in Abu Dis or Ramallah?
– Yossi Kuperwasser: When old conventions fall
– Mitchell Bard: Will Palestinians protect freedom of religion and holy places in Jerusalem?
– Udi Dekel: How to stop the shooting from the Gaza Strip
– Dennis Ross: How to get Middle East peace talks on track
– Herb Keinon: The message behind Israeli action in Syria
– Alex Ryvchin: Smiling barbarians not planning for peace
– Stephen Daisley: Israel’s revival of the death penalty would be a grave mistake
– Ramyar Hassani: Iranian regime, fragile as eggshells
Featured image: CC BY Jon S; Abba and Mogherini CC BY-NC European External Action Service; Dachau CC BY-SA Adam Jones;
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