Today’s Top Stories
1. Adele Biton who was injured in a 2013 stone-throwing attack, died Tuesday evening. Hundreds attended as the four-year-old girl was laid to rest this afternoon. I hope New York Times coverage is a sign, however small, that bureau chief Jodi Rudoren is moving away from her previous spin that stone-throwing’s an understandable “rite of passage and an honored act of defiance.”
“This serves as a reminder to everyone in Israel that rocks can kill,” Gershon Mesika, a leader of the West Bank settlers’ movement, said on Israeli television.
And where are you, Amira Hass?
2. Egypt and Jordan are seeking natural gas elsewhere while Israel regulators hash out the future of the Leviathan offshore gas field. Globes coverage.
“Egypt and Jordan are in great need of natural gas, but there is other natural gas in the region besides Israeli gas. The world won’t sit still and wait for Leviathan,” says Energy, Financial & Strategic Consulting CEO Amit Mor.
3. European officials confirmed to the New York Times that the US isn’t exactly keeping Israel fully up-to-date on the Iranian nuclear talks. This despite Washington’s denials to the contrary.
But European officials say that the Israeli reports, while overblown, are not entirely based on fiction. One recalled a recent call from Wendy Sherman, the No. 3 State Department official and lead American negotiator with Iran, saying she had cautioned against telling the Israelis too much because the details could be twisted to undermine a deal
Israel and the Palestinians
• Hamas isn’t pleased with Quartet envoy Tony Blair’s latest visit to Gaza. They claim he imposed new preconditions on international aid for Gaza’s rebuilding. Maan News writes:
Blair’s five new preconditions, says Abu Marzouk, include Palestinian reconciliation, a Palestinian political program based on a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders, and confirmation that Hamas is a Palestinian movement seeking to achieve Palestinian goals rather than being part of an Islamic movement with regional dimensions.
He also says Blair wants approval that the two-state solution is a final solution to the conflict and a reassuring message to Egypt that Hamas won’t be a base for “terrorism in Sinai” and that it would hold talks with the Egyptian government to “prevent terrorism.”
• Next time Palestinian youths in Israeli prisons becomes an issue, keep in mind that a lot of the kids want to be behind the bars. And its the New York Times that reports this.
Ibrahim is one of an increasing number of young Palestinians from Gaza who have been caught trying to cross into Israel in the nearly six months since the latest conflagration subsided. . .
Some are shot in the process. Some are harassed upon their return by Hamas, the Islamist faction that dominates Gaza, as suspected collaborators with Israel. Still, many fantasize about finding work in Israel and see even the all-but-inevitable time behind bars as worth it, given that it comes with a monthly stipend the Palestinian Authority pays all its prisoners.
Compared with Gaza, “the prison in Israel is like a five-star hotel,” said Youssef Abbas, 21, who did stints there after crossing the border in 2010 and 2008. He said he headed toward the fence twice more in September but was turned back, once by Gaza security forces and once by a call from his fiancée.
Around the World
• Norwegian Muslims are planning a protective human “peace ring” around Oslo’s synagogue, reports The Local, According to the organizers’ Facebook page, 760 (so far) will come to the synagogue on Saturday to show solidarity. An estimated 1,400 Jews live in Norway, mostly in Oslo and Trondheim.
Hajrad Arshad, the event’s 17-year-old organiser, told Norway’s state broadcaster NRK that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims”.
“We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” she said.
• Sweden’s public broadcaster apologized after journalist Helena Groll asked the Israeli ambassador an ugly question about anti-Semitism. The interview has been removed from the web site. (YouTube link via Elder of Ziyon.)
On Tuesday, a journalist for Sveriges Radio (SR) asked ambassador Isaac Bachman on air: “Are Jews themselves responsible for the progression of anti-Semitism?”
The ambassador appeared shocked by the suggestion, and replied: “I purely and simply reject the question.”
• The Times of London obtained transcripts of messages sent by Preston town council member defending their decision to fly a Palestinian flag from town hall last year during the Gaza war. The main takeaway: Council leader Peter Rankin blamed Israel for anti-Semitism.
Mr Rankin, whose wife and two children are Jewish, wrote identical responses to both those objectors, saying: “I agree antisemitism is increasing and . . . you need to think why this antisemitism is getting worse. It’s because of the actions of the IDF [Israeli defence forces] shelling schools and hospitals and killing and maiming thousands of men, women and children.”
• A British teacher was fined and could lose his job after he posted a photo of Adolf Hitler on Facebook along with an anti-Semitic message. Daily Telegraph coverage.
• French president Francois Hollande‘s question of the day:
“Must we put soldiers in front of cemeteries?”
• Reuters: Italy is deploying 4,800 soldiers around the country to augment security against possible terror attacks. Italy fears an ISIS invasion from Libya. On a related note, Michael Ledeen explains in a Wall St. Journal op-ed (click via Google News) how Italy can distinguish itself by fighting anti-Semitism and Islamic terror.
• Is ISIS harvesting organs?
Ambassador Mohamed Alhakim told reporters that in the past few weeks, bodies with surgical incisions and missing kidneys or other body parts have been found in shallow mass graves.
“We have bodies. Come and examine them,” he said. “It is clear they are missing certain parts.”
• Argentina is bracing for a massive protest march against the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
Commentary/Analysis
• Must-read: Deutsche Welle editor-in-chief Alexander Kudascheff minces no words on European anti-Semitism.
Europeans must give Jews in their countries the feeling that as a matter of course, they stand by their side. It’s a scandal that many people appear to have got used to police protection for Jewish kindergartens, schools and synagogues.
Politically, it is more than alarming that criticism of Israel (for instance in the Gaza war) often turns out to be nothing but veiled anti-Semitism.
But Europe, and every single European, must stand united against rampant anti-Semitism.
• Martin Indyk suggests the US offer Israel a “nuclear guarantee” to ease fears of Iran. But experts who talked to the Times of Israel say an American atomic umbrella would also constrain Israel’s ability to respond to possible threats.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Khaled Abu Toameh (Hamas’s new army of children) and Dr. Reuven Berko (Iran and Hamas publicly outed).
Featured image: CC BY Jon S via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; Blair via YouTube/i24News; Rome CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Giampaolo Macorig; synagogue CC BY Wikimedia Commons/ Grzegorz Wysocki; Europe via Wikimedia Commons
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
