Soldiers Killed in Terror Attack Laid to Rest

Today’s Top Stories

*** Breaking News *** Shortly after this roundup was published, a security guard in Jerusalem’s Old City was seriously wounded in what appears to be a stabbing attack.

1. Israel today laid to rest two soldiers killed in a Friday Palestinian car-ramming attack at the entrance to the northern West Bank settlement of Mevo Dotan. The two soldiers were identified as Captain Ziv Daus, 21, and Sergeant Netanel Kahalani, 20. Two other soldiers were injured. The terrorist, caught shortly after the attack, was identified as 26-year-old Alaa Kabha, a former security prisoner from the nearby village of Barta’a.

In footage released this afternoon, Palestinians were seen trying to help the injured soldiers and responding personnel.

2. The IDF destroyed two Gaza tunnels. One, an old tunnel reaching into Israeli territory, was being “rehabilitated” but was not yet operational, Israeli officials said. The second tunnel did not cross into Israel.

Tensions are rising between Israel and Gaza. On Saturday night, Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes on Hamas positions after an improvised explosive device blew up along the border fence. No soldiers were injured.

3. Israel “Apartheid” Week is underway with antisemitic incidents and controversy at campuses in South Africa and the UK. See below for details. And see HonestReporting’s video, Is Israel an Apartheid State?.

4. HR Book Review: Yoni’s Last Battle: With the new film “7 Days in Entebbe” apparently working to humanize Palestinian terrorists, this seemed the right time for a book review of “Yoni’s Last Battle.”

Israel and the Palestinians

• PA officials were living large at the 5-star Four Seasons Hotel in Baltimore, racking up a $14,250 bill, including champagne

• Facebook expands advertising map to include Israelis living beyond Green Line.

• Is the White House delaying the release of its peace plan, hoping for the emergence of a more receptive post-Abbas leadership?

• Jerusalem Post: Israel advanced plans to build a light-rail link connecting Petah Tikva and Rosh Ha’ayin with the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

Window into Israel

• Israel’s state comptroller, Yosef Shapira, who also serves as the government ombudsman, released his annual report examining the efficiency and ethical conduct of public institutions.  His roundup of the “warts and all” found lapses in various areas, such as:

– The IDF‘s implementation of international law.
– A police failure to take necessary steps after the 2014 abduction of Israeli teens.
– The IDF’s “Hannibal directive” during the 2014 Gaza war.
– The Defense Ministry‘s spokesmanship.
– The IDF‘s Orthodox conscription goals.
– The police department‘s response to crime against Palestinians.
– The Treasury for hiding billions of shekels in budget reserves.
–  The government’s treatment of lone soldiers.

• The Knesset approved the 2019 state budget. Ynet summarizes where the money’s going while the Jerusalem Post fills in background on the politicking. More at the Times of Israel.

• Church real estate sale rocks Jerusalem housing market.

• New Israeli bill seeks punishment for Jewish foreigners with ‘chained’ wives, reports the JTA.

• Worth watching: Vice News takes an in-depth look at how Israel has become a world leader in cybersecurity.

• The New York Times delves into  the support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws on in poorer periphery towns despite the ongoing corruption probes.

• For commentary on the domestic scene, see Lahav Harkov, Moran Azulay, Sima Kadmon and Amnon Abramovich.

Around the World

• Israel “Apartheid” Week is underway. The Jerusalem Post reports a large Israeli flag with the words “Apartheid State, blood is on your hands” written in red was found outside the University of Cape Town’s main building and anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti was spray painted in various areas of the Wits University campus in Johannesburg. Also at Wits U., pro-Palestinian activists put up provocative posters of Anne Frank dressed in a keffiyeh.

https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/974854103531708420

Meanwhile, London’s King’s College postponed a pro-Israel event due to “high-risk factors.”

• PayPal shut down a BDS account, blocking Collectif 69 Palestine’s ability to collect donations through the online payment system. Already this year, Paypal closed the accounts of two other French BDS organizations, Jewish French Union for Peace (UJFP) and the France-Palestine Solidarity Association. According to the Jerusalem Post:

French banks and online payment services are largely cognizant of France’s Lellouche Law, which outlaws discrimination based on national origin and has been applied to BDS organizations and activists.

• Labour-rattling (part one): The front runner for the UK party’s powerful position of general secretary, Jenny Formby, “was involved in giving work to someone who had previously been suspended by the party for antisemitism,” The Independent reports.

The controversy surrounds Vicky Kirby, who in 2016 was appointed to a senior position in Unite, Britain’s largest union, despite a raft of antisemitic tweets that should have disqualified her from even being considered. See also Jewish Chronicle followup.

Unite sources said Ms Formby would have had to approve Ms Kirby’s appointment, and would almost certainly have directly recruited her for the job . . .

• Labour-rattling (part two): Two UK Labour-affiliated municipal politicians are speaking out against their party’s antisemitism. The two shared their stories with the Times of London:

Joe Goldberg and Natan Doron said they had been repeatedly abused to their faces by pro-Corbyn Labour members — including fellow councillors — with crude allusions to their race or insulting references to the Holocaust . . .

Goldberg said he had made at least five formal complaints to local officials but got nowhere. “I complained to the Labour whip, Lorna Reith, but she told me anti-semitism was a ‘debatable term’,” he said. Yesterday Reith said: “It doesn’t sound like anything I would say.” She said she took complaints of anti-semitism “extremely seriously” and that Goldberg had not responded to her invitations to meet.

On Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2015, Reith retweeted a picture equating Israel’s military attacks on Gaza to the Holocaust.

• It’s a pity entertainment columnist Roger Friedman didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to directly ask Lorde if the New Zealand singer’s flopping US concert tour is related to her decision to boycott Israel last year. Would’ve been a nice scoop for an overly speculative column.

• Macedonia adopts definition of antisemitism that includes Israel-hatred.

Commentary

• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend . . .

– Amos Harel: Destroyed tunnels and border bombs: Hamas and Israel dangerously close to another Gaza war
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Terror attack the direct result of incitement from Gaza
– Jonathan Marks: How partisan is the issue of Israel?
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: What will the ICC do with Israel’s new report on Gaza war crimes?
– Bassam Tawil: The new Palestinian jihad to obliterate Israel
– Avi Issacharoff: Something is rotten in the terrorist kingdom of Hamas
– Dr. Raz Zimmt: A Persian riddle: When Israelis misread Iran
– Mohammed Ruzgar: The fall of Ghouta threatens Israel, US interests and the West
– Colin Rubinstein: As relations with North Korea thaw, Iran poses a bigger threat
– Vivian Bercovici: Canada joins in on some one-sided Israel bashing for no apparent reason
– Qanta Ahmed: Parkland and antisemitism
– Sammy Stein: Put hatred aside and march together against racism
– The Economist: Labour’s problem with anti-Semitism

• Last but not least, Fisk’s being Fisk again.

Featured image: Miriam Alster/Flash90; Shapira via Wikimedia Commons; Lorde via YouTube/Walrus Rider;

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

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