Today’s Top Stories
1. The UN Security Council is setting a deadline for a negotiated settlement of the conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, possibly within two years according to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
The U.S. appears to be putting pressure on Israel by leaving the possibility open that it will support the French initiative. More in the Wall St. Journal.
2. The Washington Post gives op-ed space to former U.S. president Jimmy Carter who calls for the rebuilding of Gaza and concludes:
Ultimately, only a peace agreement that grants freedom to self-governed Palestinians can bring the security that both the Israeli and Palestinian people deserve. As long as Palestinians remain divided, it will be difficult for any leader to sell to the Palestinian people a peace agreement with Israel. Absent such an agreement, lifting the closure and jump-starting Gaza’s reconstruction can do much to avert the next war.
Removing Hamas weapons and rockets might also do a lot to avert the next war but that appears to be too obvious for Carter, a serial offender when it comes to treating Palestinian terrorists with kid gloves.
3. Arab leaders at a summit in Egypt announced Sunday the formation of a unified military force to counter growing security threats from Yemen to Libya, as regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran engage in sectarian proxy wars. The summit’s final communique called for “coordination, efforts and steps to establish an unified Arab force” to intervene in countries such as Yemen.
Israel and the Palestinians
• While Newsweek is unable to provide any evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu openly supports xenophobic, populist right-wing European political parties, it still claims that they are in an “unholy alliance” simply by virtue of pro-Israel statements from these European politicians.
Commentary/Analysis
• Benjamin Netanyahu condemned on Sunday the framework Iranian nuclear agreement being sought by international negotiators, saying it was even worse than his country had feared: “This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that.”
• Saree Makdisi takes issue with the LA Times, arguing that the paper “continues to use the generic term “Arabs” or “Israeli Arabs” to refer to the Palestinians who live inside Israel, falsely distinguishing them from the Palestinians who live in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 or those who were driven into exile during the destruction of Palestine in 1948.”
• Father Gabriel Naddaf says Christians around the world should understand that a Jewish Israel has been a responsible steward for its Christians:
The assertion of Israel as a so-called “apartheid state” is complete nonsense. My successes and challenges speak loudly as to where the real problems lie for my fellow Christians.
It pains me to say this, but it must be said. The incitement against me, my campaign, and all those Christians who have sought to integrate into Israeli society has been led by Arab leaders from Israel and abroad, and even by some Arab members of Israel’s Knesset legislature. MK Hanin Zoabi wrote to me on official Knesset letterhead and accused me of “helping the enemy of the Palestinian people” and “collaboration with occupying forces.” She pressured me “to fight against the loyalists of the regime.” Of course, all this creates an atmosphere of incitement against me and anyone who is interested in integrating the Christian minority into the national service frameworks in Israel.
• Daniel Ben-Ami argues that President Obama’s attitude towards Israeli PM Netanyahu is part of a wider discourse as, following Western interventions in Middle East states over recent years,
Israel has long since ceased to play its role as a strategic asset for the West in the Middle East. On the contrary, in the days of the Islamic State and civil wars across much of the region, the Israeli state is typically viewed by the West more as a liability than an asset. The West is increasingly keen to distance itself from Israel rather than to befriend it.
This is the broader context that explains Obama’s falling-out with Netanyahu. It is far more than just a personal matter. In the decades that followed the Second World War, both of the main US political parties could be relied upon to give Israel broad support. However, in recent years Israel has become particularly estranged from a large section of the Democratic Party, including the current president. It is true that, for the time being at least, Israel still has generally warm relations with the Republicans. But the fallout with the Democrats represents an important shift in relations between Israel and the US. It is also one that is likely to persist after Obama leaves office in January 2017.
• Michael Sheridan in the Sunday Times (paywall) gives his impressions from an Israeli election meeting with Yair Lapid and a Palestinian literary event:
Later on I read the book and looked in vain for a broader sense of the abuse of language. What of the bile spewed out about Jews, Christians, infidels and apostates from the media in Muslim countries? How about the racist propaganda in Europe against outsiders, itself eliding seamlessly into anti-semitism? How does the internet popularise hate? Surely this is the context for a contemporary discussion of language and politics.
But no. Just as the nice, civilised Israelis at Lapid’s meeting inhabit a distinct world, so do the nice, civilised Palestinian intellectuals of the West Bank, both trapped in the exclusivity of their own perpetual quarrel.
• CNN gives space to a particularly virulent op-ed by Rula Jebreal who claims that Netanyahu’s victory “means it is open season for anti-Arab racism in the Knesset and in the streets.”
Rest of the Roundup
• Newsweek examines the plight of Christians in the Middle East, which includes Palestinian Christians despite the incomparably appalling conditions faced by their co-religionists in neighboring states such as Syria and Iraq. See Father Gabriel Nadaff‘s opinion piece above for an entirely different perspective of Christians in Israel.
• A close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has sought political asylum in Switzerland after travelling to Lausanne to cover the nuclear talks between Tehran and the West. Amir Hossein Motaghi said:
There are a number of people attending on the Iranian side at the negotiations who are said to be journalists reporting on the negotiations,” he told Irane Farda television. “But they are not journalists and their main job is to make sure that all the news fed back to Iran goes through their channels. My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this manner any more.
• HonestReporting has locked horns on numerous occasions with the Irish Times. Israel’s ambassador to Ireland brought eight separate complaints about the Irish Times’s coverage of Israel, all of which have been rejected by the press ombudsman. More in the Sunday Times (paywall).
[Ambassador] Modai alleged reporting and commentary about Israeli activity in Gaza and its treatment of Israeli-Palestinian relations breached several principles of the press code of conduct, including reporting truthfully and accurately, distinguishing fact and comment, and reporting with fairness and honesty.
None of the complaints was resolved during a conciliation process between The Irish Times and Modai initiated by the press ombudsman’s office. During this process Kevin O’Sullivan, editor of The Irish Times, offered to meet Modai, but the ambassador declined, saying he had met the editor before but there had been “no improvement” in coverage of Israeli affairs.
Featured image: CC BY-SA Daniel R. Blume via flickr with additions by HonestReporting
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