Today’s Top Stories
*** Breaking News *** Just after this roundup went out, breaking reports of a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Armon HaNatziv neighborhood. Developing . . .
1. A massive Tel Aviv manhunt continued for the gunman who opened fire on a downtown pub, killing two Israelis and injuring seven more.
The suspect, Nashat Milhem, is an Israeli Arab from Wadi Ara area, near Haifa, who once spent five years in jail for trying to steal a soldier’s gun. Police believe Milhem also killed a cabbie before he attacked the pub.
The two fatalitites, 26-year-old Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi, were due to be laid to rest today in Carmiel and Ofakim respectively.
2. Prosecutors filed indictments against two Israelis said to be responsible for the Duma arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents last year. A second child, four year old, is still being treated for his injuries.
According to the Times of Israel, prosecutors say Amiram Ben-Uliel acted alone in firebombing the Dawabshe family home after being stood up by an accomplice — a minor whose name has not been released. The minor reportedly helped Ben-Uliel gather information about the village of Duma.
According to prosecutors, Ben-Uliel wanted to take revenge for the murder of Malachi Rosenfeld, who was killed by a Palestinian gunmen one month earlier.
3. Saudi-Iranian tensions went up a few notches. The Saudis executed 47 people on Saturday mostly for terror-related charges. Among the executed was Sheikh Nemer al-Nemer, a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric who participated in Saudi anti-government protests.
In response to the executions, Iranians ransacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The Saudi embassy in Beirut is understandably beefing up security. More at the Daily Telegraph.
https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/683388385327722497
4. The Truth is Not Enough: In the face of the loud noise generated by BDS, the truth about Israel is not enough; we have to make Israel a “normal” country to uninterested people.
Israel and the Intifada
• An Israeli soldier was shot and moderately wounded at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs. Security forces believe the sniper fired from a nearby Palestinian apartment and a manhunt is under way.
• A lawsuit filed in the US seeks to invalidate the nonprofit status of organizations providing financial support to Israeli organizations — especially those supporting settlements and the IDF. The JTA writes:
According to the suit, about 150 nonprofit groups have sent about $280 billion to Israel over the last 20 years.
Groups such as the Falic Family Foundation, Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, American Friends of Ariel, Gush Etzion Foundation, American Friends of Har Homa and Hebron Fund have funneled the tax-free donations to Jewish settlements and the Israeli military, the suit claims.
It says the groups directly contributed to violations of U.S. and international law, subverted U.S. foreign policy, and contributed to crimes and human rights abuses against Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera.
• Israel set to release 23 terrorists’ bodies to the PA.
• NPR‘s slice of life from Jerusalem:
• Gush Etzion residents had their electricity cut off in suspicious circumstances.
• Malaysia is holding back visas from Israel’s table tennis team; the World Championships are to be held this February in Kuala Lumpur.
• Israel didn’t ban any books, Times of London headlines notwithstanding. The Education Ministry simply decided not to include Borderlife, by Dorit Rabinyan, in public school curriculum. Copies of the book are “flying off the shelves” and the publisher has ordered another print run.
• The Washington Post caught up Mohammed Dahlan. The PA’s former Gaza strongman is living in exile (currently in the UAE) after having a falling out with Mahmoud Abbas and is jockeying for PA leadership.
• An Egyptian court designated the Hamas military wing as a terror organization. AP coverage.
• Israel welcomed the new Egyptian ambassador this weekend — Egypt hasn’t had an ambassadorial presence in Israel since 2012. Ambassador Hazem Khairat was most recently Egypt’s ambassador to Chile.
Around the World
• Meet Sherzad Omar Mamsani, the Jewish representative to the Kurdish government.
He told me that, contrary to reports of only a half dozen, there are as many as 430 Jewish families left in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Although most of these Jews have kept a low profile in public, they experienced a renewed sense of hope with Sherzad’s appointment by the Kurdish government. Sherzad is working in the relative safety of the Kurdish zone to rebuild Iraq’s remaining synagogues and Jewish holy sites, and is helping rewrite the Jewish portion of Kurdish school lessons on Iraq’s religious history.
• Erdogan’s being Erdogan again:
The Turkish President’s office now says Erdogan’s comments (first reported in the Daily Zaman) are being distorted. Draw your own conclusions . . .
• The world rang in the new year with terror casting its shadow over celebrations in Rochester, Munich, Ankara, Brussells, Bangladesh, Paris, and Moscow.
Commentary/Analysis
• The world wasn’t rushing to show solidarity with Tel Aviv after Friday’s shooting. Why didn’t #JeSuisTelAviv take off? Here’s Boaz Bismuth‘s take:
On the Internet, just like in the aftermath of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices last January and the Paris attacks in November, people tried to push the slogan, “I am a Tel Avivian.” It didn’t catch on. Tel Aviv may have expressed solidarity with the victims of those terrorist attacks, but as far as the world is concerned, an attack in Tel Aviv is different than an attack in Paris or California.
And this might be the moment when Tel Aviv realizes that it might be a cosmopolitan city, but above all else it is a part of the Israeli reality. Friday’s terrorist attack serves to remind anyone on either side who might have forgotten that the State of Tel Aviv, as it is sometimes called, is an inseparable part of the State of Israel.
• Jared Samilow‘s alarmed at the way various liberal campus groups are teaming up with BDS.
It’s all part and parcel of intersectionality, a critical theory lens that examines the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, and how they overlap as interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
But for anti-Israel activists, intersectionality is not just a theory. They use it as an operational manual to guide the strategic logic of the far-left, encouraging activists to link unrelated causes to the fight against the Jewish State. By doing this, they paint Israel as an icon of global injustice . . .
If intersectionality, as applied to Israel, sounds like a contrived excuse to blame the Jewish state for everything under the sun, that’s because it is. Anti-Israel circles understand that their cause isn’t even on the radar of the average college student. By hitching their wagon to issues with greater popular appeal, pro-Palestinian activists seek to expand their tent and build a coalition larger than the handful of students fanatic enough to spend their college years slandering Israel.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Aaron David Miller: Is Abbas trying to ride wave of violence?
– Elliott Abrams: Another Obama administration spying scandal
– David Weinberg: A crystal ball on 2016
– Cal Thomas: West should remove blinders, back Israel
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: Save us from the good-hearted Westerners!
– Robert Fulford: Malaysia: a hotbed of anti-Semitism
Last, but not least, a Washington Post staff-ed came out against proposed Knesset legislation monitoring foreign funding for non-governmental organizations.
Featured image: CC BY-NC m01229;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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