Israel Buries Terror Victim as Manhunt Continues

Today’s Top Stories

1. Israeli terror victim Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal was laid to rest this morning as security forces continued a manhunt for his killer. Ben Gal was stabbed to death at bus stop at the entrance to the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel yesterday afternoon.

The terrorist has been identified as Abed al-Karim Adel Assi, a 19-year-old Israeli Arab from Jaffa with a complicated background. Assi’s mother urged him to turn himself in. Security cameras caught the attack on video.

Rabbi Ben Gal, 29, lived in the nearby settlement of Har Bracha and taught in Ariel. He is survived by his wife and four children. In what Israel HaYom calls a “poignant twist of fate,” Miriam Ben Gal was already acquainted with Yael Shevach, the widow of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, who was murdered in a Palestinian terror attack last month.

2. Is Hamas making a strategic decision to attack Israeli targets outside the Mideast? MEMRI notes a commentary published in a Hamas mouthpiece suggesting a “shift in the rules of the conflict.”

We must deliver painful blows to the enemy’s vulnerable underbelly, that is, target its interests, its investments, its diaspora and its representations around the world.

3. Did Mahmoud Abbas snoop on Palestinians with CIA help? Say it ain’t so!

A former Palestinian intelligence chief and the head of the West Bank bar association are suing the Palestinian self-rule government after a purported whistleblower alleged the two were targeted, along with many other allies and rivals of President Mahmoud Abbas, in a large-scale CIA-backed wiretapping operation . . .

The document alleges that three of the Palestinian security services set up a joint electronic surveillance unit in mid-2014 and monitored the phone calls of thousands of Palestinians, from senior figures in militant groups to judges, lawyers, civic leaders and political allies of Abbas.

4. A Three-Way Headline Bungle: A headline which fails on so many levels could’ve been avoided had editors read their story a little more carefully.

5. South Africa – Ringmaster in the Theater of the Absurd: Calling Israel an “apartheid state,” inviting Hamas to the ruling party’s conference, and refusing Israeli expertise to prevent a water – South Africa is truly a ringmaster in the theater of the absurd, writes journalist Rolene Marks in a special guest post.

Israel and the Palestinians

• A month-long manhunt for the killer of Rabbi Raziel Shevach ended in a hail of gunfire in a northern West Bank village near Jenin last night. Ahmad Nasser Jarar, the Palestinian who masterminded the drive-by shooting, emerged from a building clutching an M-16 rifle and bag of explosives and advanced on troops. Ynet coverage.

• Mahmoud Abbas issues preconditions for returning to peace talks (it’s an evergreen headline).

The Palestinians are prepared to return to the negotiating table with Israel, but only on the basis of an international multilateral mechanism, the Arab Peace Initiative and international resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.

• Following up on the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post fills in more background on what’s known about Israeli-Egyptian military cooperation against Sinai jihadists. Meanwhile, Cairo denied the report.

• Palestinians slam Jerusalem move to end tax breaks on churches and UN properties.

• Israel’s High Court of Justice is pressing the police, media and non-governmental organizations to compromise on access to areas of Jerusalem’s Old City during periods of tension, the Jerusalem Post reports. Journalists cried foul last year when police restricted access to parts of the Old City during the Temple Mount crisis while allowing Israeli citizens.

• Israeli actress Gal Gadot announced on Twitter that she’ll be voicing herself in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. According to The Wrap, “Gadot will star in an episode titled “Bart’s Not Dead” airing in during season 30, which will debut next fall.” If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the BDS crowd going D’oh!

I grew up watching @TheSimpsons and now I get to voice myself in an episode! ?? Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/LtvrZ39UiJ

— Gal Gadot (@GalGadot) February 5, 2018

• Jerusalem Post: US sanctions on Hamas and Hezbollah indirectly target Iran.

• Looks like the Assad regime is using chemical weapons again.

• Hezbollah to store weapons in a Lebanese Druze area Israel they think Israel isn’t likely to strike, according to Arab media reports picked up by Israel HaYom.

Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah has recently purchased over 100 acres of land adjacent to Lebanon’s Chouf Mountains for the purpose of storing missiles and weapons it has amassed with Iranian and Syrian assistance in special fortified compounds there, according to a report in Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida on Sunday . . .

According to U.N. Resolution 1701, passed in 2006, Hezbollah is prohibited from engaging in any type of military activity south of the Litani River, including storing ammunition in the Shiite villages its controls in the country’s south. The Chouf Mountains are north of the river and so technically the weapons buildup there is not in violation of the resolution.

Around the World

• The Trump administration helped thwart Irish legislation that would have criminalized trade with Israeli settlements, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Trump administration officials are said to have made clear to Irish leaders that passage of the bill would put them starkly at odds with the United States and subject them to inclusion on a list of countries supporting boycotts of the Jewish state.

While some Irish lawmakers described the effort as a “crackpot bill,” its passage through the Parliament was all but assured until U.S. officials from the Trump administration became involved, multiple sources told the Free Beacon.

• Poland cancels visit by Israeli cabinet miniter who vowed to ‘tell the truth’ about Holocaust. Meanwhile, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he will sign the controversial law, which would lead to prison terms for stating Poland was responsible for the Holocaust.

• US and Argentina to work together to drain Hezbollah of funding.

• A key ally of UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn claims that charges of anti-Semitism in the party are “only a problem because the right wing media try to make it a problem”. The Daily Telegraph picked up on Len McCluskey’s comments

• In first, Germany to compensate 25,000 Algerian Jewish Holocaust survivors.

• Israel is part of a “counter-terror coalition” collecting intelligence on former Islamic State combatants making their way back to Europe from Syria. The Jerusalem Post picked up on German media reports.

Commentary

• More broken quills and burnt pixels over Poland and the legacy of the Holocaust.

– Howard Jacobson: To truly remember the Holocaust, we must stay alert to prejudice
– Moshe Arens: Blaming Poland for the Holocaust is unjustified
– Alan Dershowitz: Poland seeks to censor history (click via Twitter)

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Emily Amrousi: A cruel shared fate
– Jonathan Tobin: The UN makes the case for an anti-BDS law
– Anshel Pfeffer: Why Israeli fighter jets aren’t enough to solve Egypt’s ISIS problem
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The atrocities no one talks about
– Smadar Perry: How Lebanon sees Israel’s war threats
– Dr. Shaul Shay: Egypt’s war against the Gaza tunnels
– Eldad Beck: ‘Israel must fight BDS as it would any other war’
– Diana Greenwald: Who is responsible for solving Gaza’s massive electricity crisis?
– Elliott Abrams: Iran’s imperial ambitions challenge Mideast borders

Featured image: CC BY-SA Ted Eytan; phone CC0 Free Stock Photos; church CC BY-SA Dan; shamrock CC0 Pixabay; Auschwitz CC BY-NC-ND Dortoka Berdea;

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

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