Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel buried Tuvia Weissman, who was stabbed in a West Bank supermarket by two 14-year-old Palestinians. A second man hospitalized with stab wounds is listed in moderate and stable condition. Both Palestinians were shot by an armed civilian. One died of his wounds, the other is hospitalized.
The 21-year-old Weissman, who had US citizenship, was on leave from the army at the time of the attack. He leaves behind a wife and four-month-old daughter.
2. Hezbollah set up secret prisons in Syria where it holds and tortures its opponents. Picking up on Arab reports, the Jerusalem Post writes:
Regime opponents told the website that the most famous Hezbollah prison is the “Yellow Hole” which is located in Homs. According to the report, the prisoners in Hezbollah’s jails enter Syria’s missing list and the organization refuses to release them, even if Syrian President Bashar Assad himself exerts pressure.
Hence, Hezbollah’s private prisons might create a rift between Assad and his erstwhile ally Hezbollah which enjoys growing sovereignty in Syria. Another danger to Assad’s rule that might derive from this is a rift between Syria’s Alawite and Shi’ite populations, since Hezbollah tortures in these prisons not only regime opponents, but also Alawite regime supporters who object to its presence in Syrian towns owing to its violations of the rights of the local population.
3. Hamas says it found “cameras, sensors, and other surveillance equipment in one of its tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip.” Jerusalem Post coverage.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
4. Foreign Press Head: No Media Bias Against Israel?!: Reuters’ Jerusalem bureau chief Luke Baker, who is also head of the Foreign Press Association in Israel, rejects claims the international media is biased against the Jewish state.
5. HR Gets Politicized Photo Replaced by Business Insider: After Business Insider illustrated a story with an inappropriate photo, HonestReporting got results.
6. We just released a new E-book I wrote. Red Lines: The Eight Categories of Media Bias will inform and empower you to become a savvier news consumer. The principles behind the eight categories apply to all areas of news coverage, so by understanding these objective journalistic standards, you can raise your own level of news literacy.
Red Lines is available for purchase as an e-book for a small fee on Amazon, where you can also see a short preview.
Israel and the Palestinians
• This afternoon, Palestinians tried to stab Israelis near Nablus and near Hebron. Also today, a Palestinian was caught with a knife after acting suspiciously near the Tapuach Junction. On Friday morning, three people were injured in a stabbing attack by Damascus Gate. The terrorist, a 20-year-old Palestinian from eastern Jerusalem, was shot and killed by responding policemen.
Also on Friday, a Palestinian was shot and killed while trying ram his car into Israeli security forces during a riot was shot near Ramallah. Mahmoud Abbas’Fatah lauded the 20-year-old Raed Hamed as “a heroic martyr.”
• Worth reading: How do Palestinians explain the last four months of violence? The Washington Post pressed Palestinian leaders and youths on the verbal gymnastics.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a government minister and director of Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, said: “We’re not sending people out with knives. We’re not throwing our children into the fields to die.”
“We are encouraging resistance in a peaceful way,” he said.
When asked what he would call the spate of violence, Shtayyeh blamed “certain personal initiatives.”
And what of the Israeli targets — who are they?
Palestinians and their media use the default term “settlers” and “occupiers” to describe Jewish victims in the occupied West Bank, home to 400,000 Jewish settlers.
They struggle, though, to explain how a Jewish mother of six stabbed to death in her kitchen is the same value target as an Israeli soldier with a gun at a checkpoint.
• If the four-month wave of Palestinian terror attacks by youths are a rejection of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority — as suggested by the Jerusalem Post — then perhaps we should consider it a Palestinian Spring. Just wondering . . .
• Alert Israeli guards foiled an attempt to smuggle drones into Gaza.
During a search of an Israeli vehicle carrying toys, security guards found several drones of different sizes and types, all of which were equipped with quality cameras. Additional smuggling attempts of drones have been foiled by the Shin Bet in recent weeks.
• An Iranian-backed movement, Al-Sabireen, which is trying to get a foothold in Gaza, blamed Israel for an explosion targeting its leader on Friday. No acknowledgement from Israel, or Al-Sabireen’s rival, Hamas.
• In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, the UN’s envoy to Israel and the PA, Nickolay Mladenov, discussed efforts to peace talks back on track, and also Israel’s relationship with the world body.
• Is Facebook officially recognizing the Palestinian Nakba?
• A delegation of South African journalists, academics and economists visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Times of Israel spent some time with the group as learned up close just how complex the Mideast conflict is.
Mideast Matters
• There was some Israeli media buzz over reports that missing Israeli airman Ron Arad was tortured to death in 1988 in Lebanon. YNet picked up on the Beirut Daily Star‘s coverage (via Google News) of a man who told a Lebanese military court some interesting things that don’t quite square with what’s known about Arad.
It’s not clear how reliable Moufid Kuntar is, so draw your own conclusions. Arad was captured by the Lebanese Amal militia when his plane went down in 1986, and later transferred to Hezbollah.
• Pro-Hezbollah hackers claim to have penetrated 5,000 Israeli security feeds and web sites.
• Saudi Arabia is cutting off $4 billion in military aid to the Lebanese Army because Beirut didn’t condemn last month’s torching of the Saudi embassy in Iran. In Lebanon, the move provoked predictable recriminations at Hezbollah.
Around the World
• Is UK funding Palestinian incitement? MP’s challenge to David Cameron
• Switzerland’s investigating a reported secret deal struck by its diplomats with the PLO in 1970, according to Reuters. The incident goes back to Swissair flight 100, which was among four hijacked airliners forced to land at Dawson Field in Jordan.
Allegations were recently raised that Switzerland’s then-foreign minister Pierre Graber secretly offered the PLO diplomatic assistance in exchange for the Palestinian terror groups not attacking Swiss targets.
• Canadian parliament to pass motion rejecting BDS.
• Hmmmm. A dean at the Harvard Law School disputes the ‘Justice for Palestine’ account of a donor-funding controversy.
• The Jerusalem Post reports that Chicago students are turning the tables on BDS so that Israel doesn’t get singled out for censure:
Students at the University of Illinois at Chicago have reframed the anti-Israel divestment debate so that a resolution passed by the student government no longer singles out Israel for criticism. Rather, it calls on UIC to divest from companies contributing to alleged human rights abuses in a wide spectrum of countries.
The modified resolution, passed by the student government Monday evening, which mentions the US, China, Syria, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and others, still includes Israel, but only on a list with many other countries – successfully watering down the impact.
• Can Jewish communities unite in the fight against BDS?
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Memri cites a Kuwaiti columnist urging Arabs to learn from Israel.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Amos Harel: Facing Assad’s battleground Advances, Israel changes its approach to Syria war
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Did someone cross Israel’s red line?
– Gadi Taub: Does Abbas really want Israel to withdraw from the West Bank?
– Guy Milliere: France’s relentless hostility to the Jewish state
• Here are some boycott, divestment and sanctions-related commentaries from the weekend.
– Simon Schama: The Left’s problem with Jews has a long and miserable history (via Google News)
– Joanna Williams: BDS: Censorship disguised as justice
– Eli Verschleiser: BDS — Boycott Double Standards
– Melanie Phillips: Two cheers for Britain’s BDS ban
– Russell Langer: Oxford: Let’s stop being surprised by anti-Semitism
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Nick; Dawson’s Field via YouTube/catzotto;
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