Today’s Top Stories
1. A UN report accuses the Bashar Assad regime of detaining and “exterminating” civilians on a massive scale. The Daily Telegraph explains the crimes against humanity in Syrian prisons:
That prompted activists to compare the regime to the Nazis’ death camps – a comparison the UN team seemed to echo.
“The government has committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts,” it concluded. “Based on the same conduct, war crimes have also been committed.”
The report suggests that for all the well-publicised horrors of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and of the local branch of al-Qaeda, known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the crimes of the regime may be worse.
2. There’s a lot of American and Israeli politics surrounding plans to renew a 10-year memorandum of understanding on a US defensive aid package. Globes nicely rounded up the key points from various news services.
3. Satellite images of an Iranian military complex in Parchin suggest Iran may have been carrying out secret nuclear tests even during international negotiations for the lifting of sanctions. The Daily Mail obtained the photos.
4. Radio NZ Fails to Challenge Lies: Why did Radio New Zealand give a platform to Palestinian propagandist Hanan Ashrawi without calling her out for her anti-Israel libels?
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• Soldiers at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate subdued a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who tried to stab them this morning. Also this morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl armed with a knife was arrested at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Karmei Tzur, which is near Jerusalem. Yesterday, an 11-year-old Israeli boy was stabbed in Ramla yesterday.
Tweet of the day from Margie in Tel Aviv:
Watching Palestinian media/apologists who concentrate on the fate of children in war to condemn stabbing of 11 yr old Jewish child.
So far 0— Masked Margie (@MargieInTelAviv) February 9, 2016
• I’m very glad the Associated Press is giving attention to Palestinians using Ban Ki-moon’s recent comments to justify terror. The Secretary-General recently said that “it is human nature to resist occupation.”
Danon quoted Raafat Alian, the Jerusalem spokesman for the Palestinian Fatah party, as telling the Donia Al-Watan news site that Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people “cannot go unanswered without natural responses.”
• IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot hinted at hidden efforts to uncover Palestinian tunnels.
• Today, at the Knesset, a subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee discussed how the foreign press covers Israel. Gil Hoffman was there:
Govt Press Office @GPOIsrael head says despite demands, @CBS still hasn't apologized for offensive and wrong headline on Hadar Cohen murder.
— Gil Hoffman (@Gil_Hoffman) February 9, 2016
Around the World
• The controversy swirling around the Australian Labor Party and a bid to MPs and party officials from accepting trips to Israel subsidised by pro-Israel groups is getting hotter. Shaoquett Moselmane, the first Muslim elected to the New South Wales Parliament, is demanding an apology from journalist Sharri Markson for a column she wrote last week.
Writing in The Australian (click via Twitter). Markson described a 2013 speech by Moselmane — who supports the ban — as racist and anti-Semitic.
• An Israeli charm offensive is reaching Hollywood: The Daily Beast got the scoop that Israel is offering winners and nominees of some higher profile awards a 10-day trip to Israel valued at $55,000. Other gifts in the so-called “swag bags” include a year’s worth of unlimited Audi car rentals, a lifetime supply of Lizora skin creams, a 15-day walking tour of Japan, and more. Reuters quoted Tourism Minister Yariv Levin:
“These are the most senior people in the film industry in Hollywood and leading opinion-formers who we are interested in hosting,” said Tourism Minister Yariv Levin. “They will experience the country first-hand and not through the media.”
• A faculty-sponsored anti-Israel event at Vassar College erupted in controversy. William Jacobson describes the accusations one professor made against Israel, and the support she got from Vassar’s various academic departments.
• Anti-Semitism a ‘recurrent problem’ in Dutch schools, according to a government report.
• YNet visited the Jewish community of Paris. The main Jewish school resembles a fortress, but the students describe frequent harassment on their way home. Interest in aliyah is high. This is an in-depth piece.
Shalom Belzam, a guide at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, came to Paris to teach children travelling to Israel about the Holocaust. According to him, when he talks to them about the processes leading up to the Holocaust and presents them with anti-Semitic caricatures, they immediately find similarities between those events and what is happening in France today. “This leads to comparisons,” he says.
At the Lucien de Hirsch school, this is a loaded subject: The school lost 79 students and 12 teachers when they were taken by the Nazis on the last train from the Drancy concentration camp to Auschwitz in 1944. Every time an anti-Semitic incident happens, the issue surfaces again.
• Jewish schools among those in the UK targeted by bomb threat.
• Say it ain’t so, Hamid Reza Emadi!
News director at Iran’s Press TV caught on tape sexually harassing anchor
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Eyal Zisser: Peace summits: more harm than good
– Alex Fishman: Gaza — a human time bomb
– Winfield Myers: Anti-Semitism, not academic content, fuels university boycotts
– Jon Emont: How Malaysia became one of the most anti-Semitic countries on Earth
– Michael Totten: Hezbollah devours Lebanon
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Phil Gyford;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
