Today’s Top Stories
1. Settlers clashed with Israeli police who came to evacuate the Amona settlement outpost today. The settlement — home to some 40 families — was built without state permission on privately owned Palestinian land and faced a court-imposed February 8 deadline for evacuation.
A compromise in which some of the settlers would have peacefully moved to an adjacent hillside collapsed when a court ruled the second hill was also privately-owned Palestinian land.
Haaretz, the Times of Israel and i24 News are live-blogging.
For live-tweets from Amona, see Anna Ahronheim, Judah Ari Gross, Tovah Lazaroff, Josh Mitnick, Joe Dyke, and Michael Shuval, among others.
At least 15 cops injured in clashes with activists in #Amona. Some by stones, others by bleach. pic.twitter.com/P34kxpu1py
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) February 1, 2017
2. Hamas rejected the PA’s announcement of long-overdue municipal elections to be held on May 13. Previous voting attempts collapsed under the weight of Hamas-Fatah bickering. The last time the Palestinians held municipal elections was in 2012 and was only held in the West Bank because of a Hamas boycott.
Since nothing’s changed between the two camps, the scheduled balloting will either be delayed or only take place in the West Bank.
3. Canadian school backtracks, rescinds ban on Israeli students.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
4. New York Times: Israel ‘Expanding Into Palestinian Land’: The area of land for settlements is not expanding even if the number of houses and Jews living in them is increasing.
5. The Independent, Fake News and Alternate Facts: Something’s very wrong when an op-ed is based on skewed facts.
6. With your help, we caught a lot of errors and corrected the record an awful lot of times in January.
In the News
• Israeli media reported that Hamas has restored its rocket arsenal and tunnel infrastructure to pre-2014 strength.
According to the report on Tuesday, much of Hamas’s arsenal was restored using makeshift materials already found in the Strip, but Israeli officials fear detente between Hamas and Egypt could lead to the opening of the Rafah border crossing and the possible import of materials that can build up its capabilities further.
• Without specifying any details, an Iranian general confirmed the military carried out a recent missile test.
• At least 17 bomb threats were called in to Jewish community centers around the US in a third wave of harassment in January.
• Dutch public broadcaster apologizes for poor coverage of soccer anti-Semitism.
• Georgetown U. brushed off a request by a coalition of students to release a list of companies the college’s endowment fund invests in. Administrators told The Hoya the university’s standard policy is not disclose its investments.
GU FREE is trying to get the Washington D.C. university to divest its holdings in companies contributing to “the occupation of Palestine” and says it seeks a more transparent endowment.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth listening to: Over at the Federalist Society, Professors Eugene Kontovorich, Orde Kittrie and Bernard Avishai discuss UN Security Council resolution 2334 against Israel and what it means for Israeli and US diplomatic efforts moving forward.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Einat Wilf: A how-to guide for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem
– Amb. Daniel Shapiro: So you want to move the US embassy to Jerusalem? Here’s how.
– Pinhas Inbari: Can the Palestinians mobilize the Arab world on the US embassy issue?
– Jason Reiskind: It’s time Canada ended its double standard that considers Israeli settlements ‘illegal’
– Allison Kaplan Sommer: Israel can’t afford to be Donald Trump’s fig leaf
– Dr. Shaul Shai: Iran’s missile diplomacy
– Gil Troy: A letter to my son as he enlists in the Israeli army
Featured image: Hadas Parush/Flash90;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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