Today’s Top Stories
1. Hamas drones over Egyptian airspace? Say it ain’t so!
Egyptian radar picked up three drones flying out of the southern Gaza Strip on numerous occasions, the Egyptian Al Osboa newspaper reported. The unmanned aerial vehicles penetrated as far as El Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, some 50 kilometers from the Egypt-Gaza border.
Border forces opened fire on the drones but couldn’t hit them because they were flying at an altitude of 750 meters (2,2250 feet), the report said. Under the terms of the 1979 peace deal with Israel, Egypt is not allowed to station any anti-aircraft weapons in the Sinai region, so its forces have been unable to prevent the Hamas activities.
Cairo may not appreciate the timing of this incident. The government appealed a recent court ruling designating Hamas a “terror organization.”
2. Israel demolished several illegal Bedouin structures in eastern Jerusalem. What made this unusual was that the structures were funded by the European Union and even displayed EU flags. The funding violates international law. One particular report, by AFP, even made this fantastical dig:
Activists say Israel is deliberately displacing the Bedouin in order to build settlements in the area of the West Bank just outside east Jerusalem.
That effective annexation of a corridor running through the middle of the West Bank would make the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
Not true. Despite the hype, E1 doesn’t cut the West Bank in two any more than Israel’s narrowest point.
3. The Washington Post reports that a Justice Dept. investigation of who leaked info about reported Israeli-US cyber warfare against Iran has hit a brick wall: Investigators suspect that Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright was the source of a 2012 New York Times report exposing “Operation Olympic Games.”
The problem is this: The Obama administration never officially acknowledged the covert program; awkward revelations now would complicate Iranian nuclear talks, and potentially create more US-Israel friction. The general denies being the Times’s source.
4. How AP Botched Investigation of Gaza Civilian Deaths: A pair of investigative reporters dissect an AP investigation of civilian deaths during last year’s Gaza war.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Qatar says it began a project to rebuild 1,000 Gaza homes. See also The Media Line for a more general update on the reconstruction.
• Globes: Because of delays caused by Israeli regulators, the Palestinians cancelled a $1.2 billion Leviathan gas deal.
• The West Bank community of Ariel is attracting journalists. NPR and the Irish Times paid visits.
• Times of Israel: The eastern Jerusalem family of Muhammad Musallam, who was executed by ISIS, insist the 19-year-old was not a Mossad spy. The father said his son was executed because he wanted to leave and was forced to make a phony confession on video.
Musallam’s father, Said, who has not seen the video due to his poor health, told Army Radio Wednesday that his son had joined the Islamic State of his own volition, but quickly regretted the decision. The allegations of his being a Mossad agent were simply a fabrication, he said.
Around the World
• Europe’s undercover yarmulke journalists, we get the point.
Sending a yarmulke-wearing man out with a hidden video camera to document anti-Semitism on the streets of Europe, particularly in Muslim neighborhoods, is quickly becoming a journalistic trope.
• France’s media regulatory agency formally reprimanded Jean-Jacques Bourdin for asking politician Roland Dumas if the Prime Minister was “under Jewish influence.” They were referring to Prime Minister Manuel Valls, whose wife, Anne Gravoin, is Jewish. The relevant outtake from the interview’s on YouTube, but, je suis decu, it’s not translated.
The council said that Bourdin’s question “served to banalize and advertise discriminatory behaviors,” Le Figaro reported. It put BFMTV, RMC and Bourdin on notice, but did not impose any fines.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Eliora Katz, an undergraduate studying at the University of Chicago weighs in on campus anti-Semitism.
Nonetheless, this incident shows how the vehemently anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses has bled into anti-Jewish sentiment. Israel, which was supposed to answer “the Jewish question” by helping Jews escape anti-Semitism, has today become the pretext for it.
• Today’s best snippet comes from a Los Angeles Daily News staff-ed on UCLA and campus anti-Semitism.
Young people, bless their hearts, get passionate about issues they are just discovering. But the young people at UCLA need to stop conflating the fact of being Jewish or being active in Jewish organizations with the messy Israeli politics they are just discovering. Until they do, they are complicit in a common prejudice so evil it has led to the deaths of millions of people and nearly destroyed the Western world. Stop the hate talk, UCLA student leaders; open your hearts and minds.
See also Professor Barry Kosmin’s take at CNN.
• Can Israel survive without the Palestinian Authority?
Thousands of Israel Defense Forces soldiers would likely be deployed in the event of a Palestinian security dissolution, and their long-term presence in former Palestinian Authority-controlled areas would likely cost billions of dollars to Israeli taxpayers. The Palestinian Authority’s 2014 budget was $4.2 billion, roughly half of which was funded by international donors that would not be willing to foot such a bill if the costs were borne by Israel.
• Quite a bit of commentary on Israel, Iran and the US.
– Herbert London: When Iran and Israel, words matter
– Herb Keinon: Obama’s “lame duck” status looms over nuke talks
– Boaz Bismuth: Obama’s twilight zone
– Dennis MacEoin: What the White House might not see about Iran
– Michael Totten: Nuclear deal risks pushing Sunnis into an alliance with ISIS
– Douglas Feith: The fatal flaw in Obama’s dealings with Iran (Wall St. Journal via Google News)
• For more commentary/analysis, see Ben-Dror Yemini (The propaganda agents for Hamas), Harry Majin (Why university conference on Israel’s legitimacy cannot go ahead), and Sir Mark Walport (What boycott?).
Featured image: CC BY Teteria Sonnna via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; UCLA via Wikimedia Commons/Alton
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
