Today’s Top Stories
1. US puts Iran “on notice” after missile test. Iran has long boasted of having missiles that can travel 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), putting much of the Middle East, including Israel, in range. Such capability would also put U.S. bases in the region in danger. In the wake of Iran’s ballistic missile test earlier this week, national security advisor Michael Flynn said:
As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.
However, it is not clear exactly what being “on notice” actually means.
2. Palestinians demand UN take action over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval to build 6,000 new homes in the West Bank. (Whether the approved homes will actually be built any time soon (or at all) remains to be seen). Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour accuses the PM of:
…destroying the two-state solution by the continuation of this illegal behavior.
Last month the UN Security Council passed Resolution #2334 unanimously (with the US abstaining) which called Israeli “settlement activity” a “flagrant violation of international law.” Mansour met with Volodymyr Yelchenko of the Ukraine, who is the rotating head of the Security Council this month, indicating that Palestinians would like to see the Security Council take further actions against Israel on this issue.
3. Nikki Haley, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, phoned her Israeli counterpart on Monday to reinforce America’s “ironclad support” for the Jewish state, including a pledge to block anti-Israel actions by the international body. Haley previously said:
I will not go to New York and abstain when the U.N. seeks to create an international environment that encourages boycotts of Israel…I will never abstain when the United Nations takes any action that comes in direct conflict with the interests and values of the United States.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• PM Netanyahu announces intent to establish the first new West Bank settlement since the 1990s. With constant media chatter about new settlement “growth,” “new homes,” and “new units,” it’s easy to forget that there hasn’t been an actual new Israeli settlement in the West Bank in quite some time. The PM’s announcement comes in the wake of Israel’s evacuation of the Amona outpost yesterday (see yesterday’s IDNS). However, it is common for Israeli politicians and government bodies to announce plans and even issue permits for West Bank projects that do not actually get built for years, and sometimes not at all. So is this an actual building plan or just political dialogue? Time will tell.
• Israel has allowed nine Venezuelan converts to Judaism to immigrate to Israel. The issue of aliya (Jewish immigration to Israel) is problematic when it comes to those who have converted, as the Israeli authorities do not necessarily recognize all conversions as being valid, particularly if evidence suggests an applicant converted to Judaism merely to take advantage of Israeli social benefits. (If a conversion is not considered valid, then the person in question is not considered officially Jewish under Israeli law, and would therefore not be eligible to make aliya). Advocates for the Venezuelan applicants accuse the head of Israel’s Ministry of the Interior of discriminating against the applicants because they had been converted within the Conservative, rather than Orthodox, movement. Ultimately, the Ministry reached a compromise solution, allowing the immigration, provided the applicants underwent a repeat Conservative conversion and joined an “established religious community” once in Israel.
Around the World
• Number of anti-Semitic acts in France declined last year but Crif (the umbrella representative group of Jewish institutions in France) warns against new forms of anti-Semitism such as hatred of Israel. Crif praised the French government’s “Operation Sentinel” as helping to decrease anti-Semitic acts, but warned of, “anti-Zionist acts which in many cases conceal an anti-Semitic statement.”
• A British Member of Parliament points out that even as some are protesting President Trump’s so-called “Muslim Ban” (which temporarily freezes entry to the United States by citizens from seven, out of 57, majority Muslim countries) equally deserving of protest are the 16 Arab countries who deny entry to citizens of Israel. In this video, British MP Theresa Villiers asks, “shouldn’t the protesters also be calling for that ban to be lifted as well?”
• In the UK, the charity group known as The Community Security Trust (CST) warned that anti-Semitism increased to “unprecedented” levels between 2014 and 2016, and specifically pointed to anti-Semitic incidents within Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party as having contributed to a record rise in attacks on Jews in the UK last year.
Commentary/Analysis
• Reuters explores a rare moment shortly after Israel declared independence in 1948, when enemies Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt sat down for an informal lunch at Kibbutz Gat, and discussed the possibility of peace. Though only young officers at the time, the two later became leaders of their respective countries, and the two countries eventually did sign a peace treaty which remains in effect to this day.
• Can the Palestinians Mobilize the Arab World on the U.S. Embassy Issue? The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs points out that so far, reaction from the Arab world has been relatively muted on the embassy question. Will it remain so? Will Palestinians succeed in persuading Arab states to advocate on their behalf? And if they do, will that impact the US decision? The answers depend on a variety of complex factors. Worth a read, and a moment or two of reflection.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Gavin Rabinowitz: Hamas has restored military capabilities destroyed in 2014 war
– Simon Henderson and Cmdr. Jeremy Vaughan, USN: The Saudi-Houthi War at Sea
– Barney Breen-Portnoy: As Trump Era Dawns, Top Congressmen Call for Stricter Enforcement of Iran Nuclear Deal
–Jack Khoury: Palestinian Officials Say U.S. Threatens ‘Severe Steps’ if Leaders Sue Israel in World Court
–Yonah Jeremy Bob: Threat to Israel from International Criminal Court Is Exaggerated
Image: CC BY-SA HonestReporting, flickr/Shironeko Euro
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