Today’s Top Stories
1. Russia began withdrawing military forces from Syria. Hezbollah may have begun withdrawing its forces from Syria too, according to Arab media reports that I don’t know how to judge.
Could this be related to Vladimir Putin’s short-notice invitation to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin for a working meeting? Rivlin flies to Moscow today.
See commentary below for what the Moscow move means for Israel.
2. According to the Daily Mail, “the EU is claiming diplomatic immunity after using taxpayers’ money to build unauthorised settlements and roads on Israeli parts of the West Bank” for Palestinians in apparent violation of the Oslo accords. British MPs are outraged by both the EU’s meddling and the fact that taxpayer money funds it:
The buildings, which are given to Palestinians, are intended to ‘pave the way’ for more land to be brought under Palestinian control, according to official EU papers. Many are bulldozed by Israel only for the EU to repeatedly rebuild them, generating more costs for the taxpayer.
Leaked documents obtained by MailOnline show that the EU – which receives £350million per week from Britain – is using diplomatic rules to place officials above the law, foiling attempts to hold bureaucrats accountable . . .
‘Diplomatic immunity is there to protect envoys from unjust treatment, not to protect the high-handed behaviour of arrogant bureaucracies.’
3. Palestinian anti-corruption crusader and parliamentarian Najat Abu Bakr ended a two-week sit-in at the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah. Abu Bakr sought refuge there after she accused an associate of Mahmoud Abbas of pocketing $200,000 in a water well deal and Abbas ordered her arrest. Jonathan Schanzer took note, writing in The Daily Beast:
However, her latest showdown with Abbas and company is unprecedented. Palestinian politicians typically invoke the cause of anti-corruption to score political points on the street. Few present documentation on alleged corruption, and the last time anyone sought refuge in a Palestinian Authority facility was when the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat was cornered in the presidential Muqata compound by the Israelis in response to his stoking the violence of the second Intifada.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Turns out today’s massive Tel Aviv manhunt for a Palestinian terrorist was a false alarm.
• Haaretz reports Israel and the Palestinian have been holding secret talks to restore PA security control over West Bank cities, though the Times of Israel reports those negotiations are stalled over Ramallah’s insistence of a more comprehensive and faster time-table.
IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said the talks were “not a diplomatic initiative, but an operational, security measure.”
• Hamas will put the PA’s General Intelligence Service, Majid Faraj, on trial in absentia “for foiling Palestinian terror attacks in the West Bank.” The move comes after Faraj told Defense News this:
He insists that since October, PA intelligence and security forces have prevented 200 attacks against Israelis, confiscated weapons and arrested about 100 Palestinians – claims that were not rejected out of hand, but could not be confirmed by the Israeli military.
• David Keyes was officially appointed as Benjamin Netanyahu’s new spokesman. The 32 year-old Los Angeles native succeeds Mark Regev, who will soon take up the post of ambassador to Britain. More on Keyes’ background at Haaretz and the Times of Israel.
Around the World
• An Argentinian judge denied a request to reactivate an investigation into allegations that former high government officials — including ex-president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner — covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires’ Jewish community headquarters.
• The UK Labour Party’s problem with anti-Semitism just never seems to end. Vicki Kirby, a former candidate who was suspended from the party for a Twitter rant, was readmitted and then — following public uproar — suspended pending a party investigation. Kirby got herself in hot water two years for a twitter rant in which she said Israel was “evil,” Hitler is a “Zionist God,” and hoped for Islamic State to attack Israel, among other things.
• Islamist group hacks into Venice Jewish community library website
Commentary/Analysis
• What does Russia’s military’s withdrawal from Syria mean for Israel? Yossi Melman explains:
As for Israel, the Russian decision is both a blessing and curse. On the one hand, Israel gets back its freedom to maneuver militarily, which it exercised almost completely before Moscow entered the fray. It will no longer have to coordinate its aerial activity in the skies above Syria with the Russians, nor will it need to clench its teeth in frustration as Russian fighter jets penetrate Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights.
On the other hand, Israel’s regained freedom to act could come up against Iran’s re-established position of dominance on the Syrian front.
This, of course, assumes that the Russian decision is final – even if the withdrawal takes weeks to fully implement – and that there is no ruse behind it that would shock the world.
See also Smadar Perry and a New York Times staff-ed.
• Saudi journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh argues that Iran, not Israel, is the number one enemy of the Gulf states. Memri picked it up:
“Moreover, let me say this bluntly: Any citizen of any of the five Gulf states who prioritizes the Israeli danger over that of the Persian enemy, whether from a pan-Arab or an Islamist perspective, is sacrificing his homeland, its security, its stability and perhaps its very existence for his neighbor’s cause. By any national standard, this is absolute treason.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ruthie Blum: The NYT’s frontal assault on Netanyahu
– Elliott Abrams: UN sinks further into the anti-Israel muck
– Nahum Barnea: When disaster meets despair
– Mort Zuckerman: The moral vacuum at the heart of Palestine
– Wendy Kahn: The failure of South Africa’s Israel ‘Apartheid’ Week
– Jennifer Rubin: Former apartheid state can attest that Israel is not one
– Hugo Rifkind: Corbyn must face up to Labour’s anti-Semitism
– Owen Jones: Antisemitism is a poison – the left must take leadership against it
– Elena Servettaz: How to be a Jew in France
– Judith Bergman: Denmark finally realizing security isn’t just a Jewish problem?
– Ronen Yitzhak: Hezbollah and the Muslim rift
– Con Coughlin: Ill-advised Iranian nuclear deal has kickstarted new arms race
– Aaron David Miller: Obama is right: America can’t fix the Middle East
– Tariq Alhomayed: Obama’s bubble
Featured image: CC BY Javier Micora with cropping and additions by HonestReporting;Russian jet via YouTube/Press TV News Videos;
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