Today’s Top Stories
1. Baroness Jenny Tonge is taking flak for posting on Facebook an anti-Semitic article from a fake news site.
AWD is the same fake news site which sparked a Pakistani nuclear threat against Israel over this hoax report. Other phony AWD reports include Israeli plans to colonize Russia, a Belgian arrest warrant for Queen Elizabeth and Hillary Clinton’s ties to satanic rituals.
Tonge is already under investigation by Britain’s House of Lords, apparently for hosting pro-Palestinian event in which participants blamed Israel for creating Islamic State and Jews for the Holocaust.
2. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said he’s been in talks with the Trump administration about moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
3. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the security cabinet unrestricted construction in eastern Jerusalem.
The prime minister said he will remove any political obstacles from regional and local planning committees in order to ease construction in East Jerusalem, according to Hebrew media reports. He added that wide-scale building will soon be green-lighted in the settlement blocs as well.
Meanwhile, Daily Telegraph noted that Israel also approved the construction of 105 Palestinian homes in eastern Jerusalem, a factoid omitted from reports like the New York Times, BBC and Reuters, among others.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• In their first phone call since the inauguration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation to visit President Donald Trump in Washington next month.
• The Times of Israel takes a closer look at Israel’s role in calming the Gaza electricity crisis.
Therein lies the paradox that Israel is dealing with. On the one hand, Israel does not want the Gaza Strip to suffer too much. If that should happen, it is more than likely that Hamas will try to distract public opinion by starting a war with Israel. This is why Israel is trying to keep Gaza’s head above water and not let it drown.
On the other hand, the Kerem Shalom border crossing and the goods that pass through it are helping Hamas build up military strength to prepare for the next war with Israel.
There is a third side as well. For the present — and only the present — Hamas is doing everything possible to keep things quiet with Israel. It has no interest in a war, and it is demonstrating this to Israel in various ways.
• Times of Israel: Mahmoud Abbas visited King Abdullah to discuss the expected relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem while Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh was scheduled to meet with Egyptian leaders in Cairo today.
• Here’s an example of the media’s conventional wisdom clouding facts. Updating the latest developments on the possible relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the New York Times writes:
The Israeli news media was filled with speculation on Sunday that the Trump administration would immediately announce the embassy move — as a de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured from Jordan during the 1967 war.
Relocating the embassy to the western side of Jerusalem would do no such thing. Without prejudicing US policy, former president Barack Obama’s visits to western Jerusalem included:
– staying at the King David Hotel
– addressing students in Jerusalem’s International Convention Center
– a state dinner at the President’s Residence,
– holding a joint press conference at the Prime Minister’s Residence
– viewing of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum
– laying a wreath at Yad Vashem
– participating in Shimon Peres’ funeral on Mt. Herzl
• Question for The Independent‘s clunky headline writers: What’s happening on Monday? The announcement or the move? #MakeHeadlinesGreatAgain
• A Hamas operative was killed in the collapse of a ‘resistance tunnel’ in Gaza.
• Hamas security forces in Gaza celebrated the graduation of the latest recruits on Sunday with the de rigueur participation brainwashing of kids dressed in military fatigues.
Splendid waste of concrete as #Hamas security forces celebrate Sunday graduation https://t.co/aEpgwBkzi0 #Gaza pic.twitter.com/OrUXWYMTXV
— Pesach Benson (@PesachBenson) January 23, 2017
• Replacing the controversial Hannibal protocol, the IDF issued new directives for how soldiers should deal with the abduction of an Israeli soldier.
• Spanish courts dealt a double blow to BDS, striking down boycotts of Israel adopted by municipal councils of Rivas Vaciamadrid and Sant Quirze del Valles.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Zalman Shoval: Trump and Israel: Wait for the meeting
– Sima Shine: The problem with Iran isn’t its nuclear program
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians of Syria: A year of killings and torture
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): The shocking rise of anti-Semitism in the US
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Franck Paul; fake news CC BY-NC-SA Free Press/Free Press Action;
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