Today’s Top Stories
*** Breaking news *** Shortly before this roundup was published, media reports said an Israeli helicopter fired missiles into the Syrian Golan, near Quneitra. Neither Israel nor Syria confirmed the strike, and it’s not yet clear what was targeted.
1. The International Criminal Court opened a “preliminary” investigation of possible war crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will be investigating whether there is enough evidence to carry out an all-out formal investigation. Only later — and it’s not clear when — will she decide whether a formal investigation is warranted.
Buoyed by the move, Palestinians began preparing lawsuits against Israeli officials who ordered the destruction of Gaza homes. The PA’s also mulling lawfare against settlements, but a PA official told the Times of Israel it would suspend it if Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity.
Israel has a range of jurisdictional objections it can make at this preliminary probe phase, a stage where Bensouda gathers information to decide whether to fully investigate and potentially file indictments.
One is that its own war crimes investigations make ICC investigations superfluous – a defense that could be extremely viable, since ICC rules do not permit it to investigate war crimes in countries that reasonably self-investigate.
Another is that the PA signed away any right to seek ICC intervention under the Oslo Accords.
Yet another is that Israel is not a member of the ICC and could just decide not to show up – and there are many others.
2. CNN anchor Jim Clancy quit; his Twitter account is deleted too, all on the heels of his anti-Israel Twitter outburst. But CNN’s not saying anything about why he was dismissed. See HonestReporting’s response: No Teachable Moment as Jim Clancy Leaves CNN.
3. French media watchdog asks: Did TV stations endanger hostages?
“It’s an ethical problem,” said French commentator and political scientist Dominique Moisi. “If you want to be ahead of the police because that’s the way to attract your public, if you deal with those things like a kind of live show, it can because dangerous and prejudicial. Because by the end of the day, you forget that there are real lives at stake.”
Israel and the Palestinians
• AP: Mahmoud Abbas seeks a financial “safety net” from the Arab League — $100 million a month — to cover tax revenue transfers Israels’ withholding. Putting in faith in the Arabs to follow through on pledges isn’t a good idea. Buzzfeed describes a dance we’ve seen before.
• Israel’s lobbying foreign powers to defund the ICC, Reuters reports.
• Here’s something you don’t see often: The administration of Al-Quds U. condemned a video filmed by Hamas-affiliated students dramatizing the murder of Jews. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• If you’re wondering about the ill-will between Israel and Sweden, YNet got fresh quotes from an Israeli official (albeit anonymously) responding to the latest gripes from Stockholm after a visit by Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom was cancelled.
• Seven Israeli-Arabs were busted trying to set up an ISIS terror cell.
• Although the Sydney Morning Herald already apologized for it, it’s important that the Australian Press Council ruled on the record that Glen Le Lievre’s cartoon during last year’s Gaza war was offensive — and why.
In this instance, the cartoon’s linkage between the Jewish faith and the Israeli rocket attacks on Gaza was reasonably likely to cause great offence to many readers. A linkage with Israeli nationality might have been justifiable in the public interest, despite being likely to cause offence. But the same cannot be said of the implied linkage with the Jewish faith that arose from inclusion of the kippah and the Star of David. Accordingly, the Council’s Standards of Practice were breached on the ground of causing greater offence to readers’ sensibilities than was justifiable in the public interest.
The cartoon controversy was quickly overshadowed by the nasty screed it illustrated and its own fallout — columnist Mike Carlton left the Herald over his foul-mouthed responses to readers.
• AFP picked up on a Palestinian NGO’s report blaming Israel for the lack of Palestinian press freedom. I couldn’t find the Gaza Centre for Press Freedom online, so I have no idea if their report also accuses Hamas or the PA of media restrictions (I doubt it). AFP doesn’t even raise that possibility on its own. It’s another example of the halo effect giving legitimacy to self-proclaimed experts to bash Israel.
• Palestinians threw eggs and shoes at Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, who was visiting Ramallah, YNet reports. It’s worth asking if they were “egged on” by the PA. In Friday’s Globe & Mail, Saeb Erekat opined that Baird should apologize to the Palestinians; Baird called out the PA after Erekat equated Israel and ISIS.
Several dozen Palestinian special forces armed with machine guns and riot gear made no effort to confront the egg-throwers among a crowd of about 100 protesters.
• At the PLO terror trial in New York, an IDF intelligence officer testified about the PA’s “revolving door” of arresting and releasing terrorists. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• Reuters: Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige, is in big trouble at home after she appeared in Miss Israel’s selfie at the Miss Universe competition. Here’s what Doron Matalon posted on Instagram; it’s illegal for Lebanese nationals to have contact with Israelis; Greige says Matalon photobombed her.
• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrives in Israel today.
• Why did the Nigeria’s swing vote in the UN Security Council surprisingly go against Palestinian statehood? According to Nigerian journalist Jide Ajani, it had to do with several long-term strategic reasons, including:
- Helpful Israeli assistance against Boko Haram.
- Indirect Saudi support for Boko Haram.
- Falling oil prices hitting hard on the Nigerian economy.
• Egyptian army explosives in major Gaza smuggling tunnel.
French Terror: The Aftershocks
• The mastermind of a major Belgian terror attack thwarted over the weekend was caught in Greece (quite possibly with an assist from the Mossad).
• Belgian Jewish schools closed on Friday due to the terror threat. Britain is stepping up protection in Jewish neighborhoods.
• Less than a week after Mahmoud Abbas marched in Paris (in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo?), Palestinians burned a French flag on the Temple Mount, and Gaza’s French cultural center was defaced with graffiti.
• The FBI blasted the New York Times for giving anonymity to an Al-Qaeda operative in a page-one article about the Paris terror attacks. Readers editor Margaret Sullivan responded. The FBI’s beef?
“Your decision to grant anonymity to a spokesperson for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula so he could clarify the role of his group in assassinating innocents, including a wounded police officer, and distinguish it from the assassination of other innocents in Paris in the name of another group of terrorists, is both mystifying and disgusting,” Mr. Comey said in a letter to The Times.
He added: “I fear you have lost your way and urge you to reconsider allowing your newspaper to be used by those who have murdered so many and work every day to murder more.”
The article did not say why The Times did not name the individual, who communicates with news organizations through a mobile messaging application.
Here are 6 Questions You Need to Ask When Big Media Quotes Anonymous Sources.
• Israel’s French community gears up for another influx, reports the New York Times and NPR.
Commentary/Analysis
• Eugene Kontorovich: The ICC’s decision to open a preliminary investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes is based on a flawed understanding of the UN General Assembly and its decision to confer non-voting statehood status to the Palestinians:
But the prosecutor did not actually determine the Palestine qualifies as a “state” under the well-established legal definitions of the term. Rather, she said that the U.N. General Assembly’s vote in 2012 to call Palestine a “non-member state” is dispositive of the question. In short, she substituted the determination of the General Assembly for her own. The GA is not a judicial body, but a political one. Its determinations are political, not legal. (It also has no power under the U.N. Charter, to create or recognize states.)
• Is the world more dangerous for the Jewish people right now? That’s the question CNN put to Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer.
• A Charlie Hebdo founder says slain editor “dragged” the team to their deaths by “overdoing” provocative cartoons.
• The New York Times discovers “terror.” No qualifying quote marks. It’s not about Israel, though; as far as the Gray Lady’s concerned, “terror” never happens here.
In Nigeria, the Terror Continues
• For more commentary/analysis, see Dan Margalit (Diplomatic declaration of war), Rabbi Warren Goldstein (French Jewry: the canary in the coal mine), Herb Keinon (Will Paris attacks change France’s view on Israel and the Palestinians?), Ben-Dror Yemini (The problem with Islam), Dore Gold (Isolated incidents, or global war?), Boaz Bismuth (We are not all Charlie), Aditi Bhaduri (Modi-fying India-Israel ties), Amir Taheri (Democracy is the answer to terrorism),
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Hezbollah has certainly grown in size and firepower. But at what cost to the organization?
“They’ll take anyone [to go fight in Syria],” said a young fighter, who asked to be referred to only by the nickname Abu Ali. “So don’t be surprised if you see some thugs among us these days,” he added with a dark laugh.
While Abu Ali has been a member of Hezbollah for more than 10 years, he says he barely recognizes the organization these days. On the battlefield, he says, he sees fighters, once known for their discipline, acting out of pure rage; he said that on the streets of his neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah security forces, once a symbol of stability, now only add to the growing sense of unease. He believes the need for men on the front lines has forced Hezbollah to drop its recruiting standards.
• Turkey’s ruling AK Party is gearing up for elections, according to Turkish media reports, this isn’t good news for the Jews.
• The Saudis are building a 600-mile wall along their border with Iraq. The goal — to keep ISIS out. More at the Daily Telegraph.
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Jon S; Bensouda CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Prachatai; anonymous CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Scott Beale)
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