Today’s Top Stories
1. Another war of words between Israel and the UN: On the same day Israel buried terror victim Shlomit Krigman, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced Palestinian terror, then excused it, telling the Security Council, “It is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu fired back, saying “The secretary-general’s remarks provide a tailwind for terrorism. There is no justification for terrorism. Those Palestinians who murder do not want to build a state, they want to destroy a state and they say this openly.”
https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/692332820610547712
2. At least six Palestinians were reportedly killed in a tunnel collapse caused by winter rain. The Times of Israel reports that Hamas A) refuses to let Gaza media cover the incident, and B) “accused Israel of causing the collapse by opening dams to flood Gaza with water.” Quite a few reporters fell for that lie last year. There are no dams in southern Israel, and enough retractions were issued last time, so it’s unlikely the foreign press corps will give the calumny any traction.
And further raising fears of infiltration, Israelis living along the Gaza border renewed their complaints about Palestinian tunneling, saying they have heard “reverberating underground drilling sounds,” according Israeli media reports.
3. YNet takes a closer look at what’s known about chemical weapons still being used in Syria. And a former Libyan intelligence saying that Islamic State managed to plunder Gaddafi-era chemical weapons and transfer them to Syria. The Times of Israel has background on a video noted by MEMRI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lpp2aPxiXw
4. SUCCESS: NPR Ombudsman Explains Map Error, Cites HR: A textbook example of accuracy prevailing thanks to watchful readers and a straightforward ombudsman.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• As this roundup was published, there were breaking reports of a foiled Palestinian stabbing attack at the Qalandiya checkpoint.
• It turns out Nashat Melhem, the terrorist who killed three people in Tel Aviv on New Years Day, was influenced by Islamic State-Salafist ideology, and planned a second shooting spree in Afula. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• France is reportedly organizing a meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. According to Israeli media reports, the meeting will be in the context of an upcoming global conference on fighting terror, which the Israeli and Palestinian leaders will be invited to.
The French hope is that on the sidelines of such a summit, Netanyahu and Abbas will agree to also meet one another and restart dialogue that may then grow into substantive peace negotiations.
• The Times of London picked up on the stories of Ramzi Herzallah and Ayman al-Aloul, two Palestinian journalists whose work drew the wrath of Hamas.
A crackdown on media dissent has coincided with signs of broader public protest. Hamas, which is committed to destroying Israel and is listed as a terrorist organisation in Europe, has controlled Gaza since 2007. Both men had criticised tax rises and blackouts and published pictures of people looking for food in rubbish dumps. Mr Herzallah had referred to Hamas on social media sites as the “green occupation forces”. He said: “At the detention, I was told to shut up because the Hamas government has enough to worry about.”
• The IDF briefed Israeli journalists about the latest threats from Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic State presence in Sinai, as well as West Bank terrorists. See YNet and the Times of Israel.
• While a winter storm pushed Israeli electrical usage to record levels, the Public Utility Authority was hit by a massive cyber attack. Minister of Infrastructure, Energy and Water Yuval Steinitz made the disclosure at a Tel Aviv cyber tech conference yesterday. Without going into much detail, Steinitz said the assault was brought under control.
• As Israel buddies up with Cyprus and Greece, analysts tell the Christian Science Monitor that perhaps it’s time for Israel to think of itself as a Mediterranean, rather than Middle East nation.
“The Mediterranean was ignored by Israel because after the end of the Cold War, it was basically an American lake,” says Jonathan Rynhold, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University. But “with America being less assertive and less involved; Israel has to come out with its own strategy.”
Offshore gas discoveries, meanwhile, have created an opportunity for a new matrix of cooperation.
• Methinks Iran’s trying to drive a wedge between Israel and the US. He told Reuters Tehran and Washington could become closer, and he’d be happy to see US businessmen in Iran. Who is the bogeyman?
“I would like to see the Americans set aside their hostility and chose another way, but inside the U.S. there are some problems, there is no unified voice,” he said, noting that “the Zionist lobby” was “very influential”.
• Just satire. If you share this thinking it’s real, don’t blame me . . .
NY Times Adds Automatic Editor’s Note To Every Diaa Hadid Submission
Holocaust Remembrance Day
• UNESCO chief Irina Bokova and US Holocaust Memorial Museum director Sara Bloomfield explain the importance of fighting propaganda by pointing out that The Holocaust started with words, not mass killings.
• Here’s an assortment of other Holocaust Remembrance Day articles I saw today:
– Tens of thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors are living in abject poverty
– Remembering the Holocaust digitally — without survivor accounts
– Hugo Rifkind: Why we must all take a moment to remember
– Online Holocaust denial is a real threat to the Jewish community
– Dvir Abramovich: Lessons still resonate on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Around the World
• The BBC says it was ‘inadvisable‘ for TV chief Danny Cohen to sign JK Rowling’s letter opposing a cultural boycott of Israel. Cohen announced he was leaving the BBC in October, before the letter was published, and stopped working in November after the letter was published.
• 200 Brazilian academics sign on to anti-Israel boycott
• Swiss socialist group apologizes for anti-Semitic caricature:
The caricature shows Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann saying: “And one spoonful for the international finance lobby” as he feeds a large-mouthed man wearing a black coat and hat and side-locks, who is clutching the minister’s wrist. A boy with lighter hair sits on the minister’s other side while opening his far smaller mouth.
https://twitter.com/ISCAorg/status/691535584628707328
• Migrant influx in Germany raises fears of anti-Semitism
• Taiwan’s new president is ‘amazed’ by Israel
• In case this interests anyone, Dominic Ponsford finds that the paywalled Times of London is breaking even while the The Guardian’s “open journalism” model is bleeding money.
At the current rate of spending [Guardian News and Media] will run out of money within the next eight years.
Commentary/Analysis
• Why is Israel so cautious on the Islamic State? A recent war game explains why. David Ignatius notes the key takeaway:
The Israelis don’t want to disturb a hornet’s nest in taking on the Islamic State. Is a similarly measured option available to the United States? Most Israeli officials say no. They argue that the United States is a superpower, and that if it wants to maintain leadership in the region, it must lead the fight to roll back the Islamic State.
• Question of the day:
Why not bomb Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV?
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– David Horovitz: Stop the incitement, stop the killing
– Yaara Yeshurun: 300 attackers are not ‘lone’
– David Bernstein: Israel derangement syndrome envelops the far left: 6 examples
– Mark Joseph Stern: The LGBTQ Left has an anti-Semitism problem
– Kelly McParland: Sorry Israel, Canada is climbing back on the fence
– Zalman Shoval: Acknowledge the Iranian threat
– Brendan O’Neill: The violence of the Safe Space
Featured image: CC BY-SA Sascha Kohlmann; Abbas CC BY-NC-ND Number 10; Netanyahu CC BY-ND The Jewish Agency for Israel; Auschwitz CC BY xiquinhosilva;
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