Today’s Top Stories
1. John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif met in Geneva yesterday. According to AP, a “phased” deal is taking shape.
The United States and Iran are shaping the contours of a deal that would initially freeze Tehran’s nuclear program but would allow it to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make nuclear arms over the last years of the agreement’s duration . . .
The idea would be to reward Iran for good behavior over the last years of any agreement, by gradually lifting constraints on its uranium enrichment program imposed as part of a deal that would also would slowly ease sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Meanwhile, leaked documents due to be published in the coming days supposedly highlight disagreements between the Mossad and the Prime Minister’s office regarding the Iranian nuclear threat. Stay tuned.
2. Mayor Nir Barkat became an instant hero online when he and his bodyguard subdued a Palestinian who stabbed a Jewish man near city hall yesterday. The CCTV footage is all over the internet. The victim, Avraham Goldschmidt, is expected to be released from the hospital today.
Hizzoner shared his thoughts on the attack in today’s Israel HaYom. The attack came 11 years to the day after Barkat saved the life of a teenager from a bus bombing. (See this 2004 Washington Post report.)
3. Israeli officials hit back at accusations that Jerusalem’s causing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority by freezing tax transfers. The Jerusalem Post writes:
One Israeli official said Jerusalem, which has held up two monthly payments and the transfer of some $200 million since the beginning of the year in response to the PA joining the International Criminal Court and initiating proceedings against Israel, has done an assessment and concluded that while “there is pressure on the PA,” there is “time” and the PA is not on the verge of collapse.
“We believe that people should focus on what brought about this situation, which is the PA breaking fundamental commitments to the peace process by going to the UN Security Council and the ICC,” the official said. He added that Israel could not be expected to sit idly by as the PA wages “diplomatic warfare “ against it.
According to the official, Israel’s response has so far been “very measured,” adding that the funds are being held in escrow and not being used to pay the PA’s large water and electricity bills, a move that would be “irreversible.”
The Palestinians, meanwhile, threatened (once again) to end security ties with Israel. (Here’s why they won’t.)
4. Dam Busted: Palestinian Lie Exposed: Reports circulating online that Israel flooded Gaza by opening dams don’t hold water. You see, there are no dams in southern Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• A Hamas terror cell in Hebron planning suicide bombings and other terror attacks was busted.
• Kristin Landow, a senior vice president at Moody’s, told Forbes that the boycott movement against Israel only hurts the Palestinian economy. Forbes concludes:
Such trade flow asymmetry shows Palestine needs Israel, economically speaking. Yet the BDS crowd would impair economic ties between these areas, despite evidence that trade between peoples lessens outbreak of war. BDS-ers want to obliterate the vast trade surplus Israel extends to Palestine and offer nothing in its place.
• Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby blamed Israel Hamas-Fatah bickering for the sorry state of reconstruction in Gaza.
• Israel to purchase 14 advanced stealth F-35 fighter jets (a.k.a. Joint Strike Fighters) from the US for $3 billion. AP reports:
The recent signing with Lockheed Martin Corp. includes an option for 17 more in the future. The first such planes are to arrive in Israel in late 2016.
Around the World
• Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo discussed French anti-Semitism and the battle against Islamic terror in a Washington Post Q+A.
• Danish police shot down a proposal by Muslims to form a ring of peace around the Copenhagen Synagogue. The idea was inspired by Norwegian Muslims who formed a protective ring around the Oslo synagogue in a show of solidarity with the Jewish community. The Times of Israel writes:
“We have chosen to say no because of a specific security assessment of the situation we have here right now,” Copenhagen police spokesman Mads Jensen told TV 2.
• Reuters picked up on Russian reports that Moscow has offered Iran Antey-2500 missiles that could be used to defend nuclear sites from possible future air strikes.
Commentary/Analysis
• Must read: Widen the Israel discussion on campus
Contrary to what many may think, the real challenge on campus is not necessarily on the quads. The main challenge is in the academic realm. Tragically, and not without our own contribution, the academic discussion about Israel has been almost solely confined to Israel’s geopolitical hardships.
In the classroom, students are often exposed to Israel as a political issue usually within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict. The powerfully positive and optimistic narrative of Zionism, one of the most successful national liberation movements in history, has been reduced to a narrow, one-dimensional, discussion of the conflict. Sadly, many of Israel’s well-wishers have contributed to this reduction.
How to address the challenges? Read the whole piece.
• Joseph Lieberman urges Democrats to “hear out Israel’s leader.”
• For more commentary/analysis, see Walter Reich (Obama must be clear: War on extremism is a war on violent Islamism), Dani Garavelli (Growing anti-Semitism in Scotland),
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Theodor Hensolt with additions by HonestReporting; dam CC BY-SA HonestReporting with background designed by Freepik; jet CC BY-NC flickr/US Air Force; campus CC BY-SA HonestReporting, Nina Geometrieva, freestock.ca;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
