Today’s Top Stories
1. Post-elections tensions between Washington and Jerusalem continued. Here’s Benyamin Netanyahu’s full interview with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News explaining his pre-election comments that had the White House and Big Media up in arms. The prime minister also talked to NPR and Fox News. (NPR got a followup response from Saeb Erekat.)
But President Obama took to Huffington Post to say he doesn’t believe the prime minister’s genuinely interested in a two-state solution.
“We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership, and so that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region,” the president said in an interview with The Huffington Post on Friday.
Though he pledged to keep working with the Israeli government on military and intelligence operations, Obama declined to say whether the United States would continue to block Palestinian efforts to secure statehood through the United Nations.
It was left to the US ambassador, Dan Shapiro, to smooth things out; he told Israeli media that Washington has made no decisions yet on any changes in policy. A lot of today’s commentary addressed what was said, what was meant, and everyone’s motives. Judge for yourself when you see below.
2. An EU document leaked to The Guardian outlines possible new sanctions against Israel over “settlement activity in Jerusalem.”
3. Israel was the only country condemned for its treatment of women. AP fills in more details — it’s about “the occupation” and the old Israel Made Me Beat My Wife syndrome.
Israel and the Palestinians
• IDF issues third report on Gaza war investigations
The army announced six new criminal investigations, the most notable of which involved a July 30, 2014, strike on an UNRWA facility in which 20 Palestinians were killed. The report said that there was a reasonable basis to thin that the rules of engagement were not properly followed.
• Israelis and Palestinians might best know Katherine Viner as the author of the controversial play, My Name is Rachel Corrie. Viner was appointed editor in chief of The Guardian.
• Israeli security busted a Hamas terror cell in the West Bank planning bombing attacks.
• Memo to MarketWatch and the pseudo-experts: I only wish Israel was as smart as you think, knowing how to plan military operations around unexpected disasters. Even when airplanes aren’t going down, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are always in the news. Are they part of Israel’s media conspiracy too?
The researchers looked at Israel’s military interventions in Palestine over an 11-year period, from 2000 to 2011, and then compared them to what was going on in the news at the time. That included looking at whether there was big other news, and whether that other news was scheduled — such as, say, the Super Bowl — or unscheduled, such as an earthquake or tsunami or plane crash somewhere in the world.
Election Aftermath
• Jerusalem Post: President Reuven Rivlin began consultations with party leaders about who should be tasked with forming the next coalition.
• The Palestinians insist that Netanyahu’s re-election boosts their statehood strategy to pursue unilateral actions and isolate Israel diplomatically.
• The Joint Arab List’s success is giving heart to Israeli Arabs. The Guardian visited Jaffa to get a sense of the mood.
• Labor confirmed that Netanyahu sought unity government, but Likud denied it.
• Several Syrian rebel groups sent messages of congratulations to Benyamin Netanyahu on his re-election through a Druze go-between. Jerusalem Post coverage.
Mideast Matters
• When to lift the sanctions on Iran? That’s proving to be a big stumbling block in the nuclear talks, according to the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News).
Tehran’s negotiators in Switzerland, according to these diplomats, have hardened their position that United Nations sanctions on their country be repealed at the front end of any deal reached this month with the U.S. and other global powers.
The U.S. and its European allies are demanding the U.N.’s sanctions be suspended or terminated in a phased time-frame over years.
They believe sanctions relief should only come after Iran addresses concerns about its past nuclear work and is given a clean bill of health by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The number of centrifuges is another hurdle, according to the New York Times.
• One of Hezbollah’s leading newspapers shut down, putting the organization’s fading finances back in the spotlight. Its war chest remains unaffected.
• Israel’s gotta be keeping an eye on this. Iran’s keen to expand its presence to the Red Sea; some of these goodies could make their way to Gaza.
Iranian ship unloads 185 tons of weapons, military equipment for Houthis in Yemen
Around the World
• Southampton University is moving forward with plans for an academic conference questioning Israel’s right to exist. But the blowback could prove costly. According to the Daily Telegraph, several of the school’s donors have voiced their displeasure, at least one alumni returned his degree in protest, and one prominent lawyer said he would “think twice” before hiring someone from the university.
• Swastikas and Hitler imagery posted around the University of Cape Town have Jewish students on edge. It all has to do with black students seeking to remove a contentious statue of Cecil John Rhodes, a British-born magnate and politician who ardently supported British colonialism in Africa in the late 1800s. According to South African media reports:
For the rest of the week, the group would continue putting up symbols of Adolf Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan, the Confederation Flag, and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.
• A Toronto police report on hate crime says Jews were the city’s most victimized group in 2014.
Commentary/Analysis
• Dore Gold jousted with CNN‘s Erin Burnett on how the prime minister’s pre-election comments were interpreted.
• If there’s no Mideast peace in our time, it won’t be because of Netanyahu’s election victory, argues Charles Krauthammer:
• If the next two years are the worst two years in the history of US-Israel relations, it could be “just what Obama wants,” argues Max Boot.
• A confused Fareed Zakaria claims that Ayatollah Khamenei’s calls for Israel’s destruction is far more nuanced than we think. “Death to Israel” really refers to a referendum. He forgets that Palestinians vote in PA elections — their last national election was in 2005; voting scheduled for 2009 hasn’t happened yet.
• A former cadre of both Hamas and Fatah praises Israeli democracy in a column translated by MEMRI.
• Enough post-election commentary this weekend to make your eyes pop out.
– David Horovitz: Ashamed of Netanyahu, infuriated with Obama
– Jennifer Rubin: The accusation of racism against Netanyahu
– Avi Issacharoff: Palestinians weigh next steps after Bibi’s re-election
– Howard LaFranchi: Why US-Israel relations are not likely to worsen
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas paves way to turn West Bank into an Islamist state
– Doyle McManus: Time for US tough love and damage control?
– David Weinberg: Rethinking the peace process
• Jeff Darcy weighed in at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
– Dana Milbank: Can Israel remain a democracy?
– Patrick Martin: One misstep closer to a Palestinian state
– Aron Taxy: Don’t count out the Israeli left
– Leon Hadar: Could Bibi and Obama kiss and make up?
– James Rubin: Bibi won the election and lost a friend in the Oval Office
– Jonathan Freedland: Bibi sank into the gutter – and will face consequences
– Afif Emile Safieh: Still time for Obama to remake the Mideast
– Boaz Bismuth: Obama can relax, there is democracy in Israel
– Ari Shavit: Is Israel losing its soul?
• Patrick Chappatte’s poison pen weighed in at the New York Times.
• Staff-eds weighed in over the weekend:
– Bloomberg News: Now for Netanyahu the statesman, please
– Boston Herald: Netanyahu 1, Obama 0
– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Netanyahu’s win is likely to chill U.S. relations
– Miami Herald: Keep U.S.-Israel relationship strong
– Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Netanyahu wins: The message sent
– Richmond Times-Dispatch: Contention with Obama helped Bibi change focus and win
– Toledo Blade: Netanyahu’s dangerous game
– USA Today: Netanyahu’s tactics leave peace as roadkill
– Baltimore Sun: Bibi’s costly victory
– Globe & Mail: What Israel lost with Netanyahu’s victory
– Providence Journal: Landslide in Israel
• UN claims Israel is world’s worst violator of human rights
• What’s the world’s diplomatic “break out” time for stopping an Iranian bomb? asks Claudia Rosett.
• For more commmentary/analysis, see Efraim Inbar (Did Israel weaken Hamas?), Angela Epstein (Better to lay low than wear a star of David),
Featured image: CC BY Christian Cable with modifications by HonestReporting; map CC BY-SA HonestReporting.com
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
