Today’s Top Stories
1. The IDF’s on high alert and preparing for retaliation from Iran or Hezbollah. A top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, said “Israel’s crime” would “not remain without response.”
Iran was setting up a large air force compound at the T-4 Base in Syria, according to Haaretz.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
2. At a conference in Ramallah, Dublin Mayor Micheal Eamonn Mac Donncha said Palestinians, like the Irish, were victims of imperialism, Ynet reports.
Donncha was on an Israeli government blacklist barring him from entering the country, but managed to pass through Ben Gurion because his name was misspelled on the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ paperwork.
On the eve of #HolocaustRemembranceDay the Lord Mayor of #Dublin takes part in a #Ramallah conference, glorifying the #GrandMufti that met #Hitler.
Did Mícheál MacDonncha intentionally chose this timing? Either way, he is participating in a conference glorifying a war criminal. pic.twitter.com/vRtGgqZuGA— COGAT (@cogatonline) April 11, 2018
3. UK Labour Party scandals have ’emboldened’ antisemitic attackers according to a report picked up by the Daily Telegraph. The JTA and Washington Post looked at the Tel Aviv U. study’s other findings.
Alongside hard-right antisemitic activity there has also been a “rise in leftist antisemitism” which “supports radical Muslim anti-Israeli attitudes expressed in antisemitic terms such as in the BDS and Antifa movements, and certainly in the UK Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn,” it said.
“The recent strengthening of the extreme right in a number of European countries was accompanied by slogans and symbols which remind, not only the Jewish population, of the 1930s, despite the significant differences between the two periods,” the report added.
4. Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018: In Israel, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, everything stops for two minutes. Here’s a little peak from right outside our office.
5. Saeb Erekat: Leg Injury is an ‘Extrajudicial Killing’: Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, serial liar Saeb Erekat falsely claimed that a Palestinian was the victim of an “extrajudicial killing” even though he was actually shot in the leg and injured — a significant detail that HR got added to the story.
6. HR managing editor Simon Plosker discussed the latest events and media coverage from Israel with Australia’s J-Air Radio‘s David Schulberg.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli jets carried out an overnight air strike on a Hamas compound in Gaza after a bomb was detonated near an IDF bulldozer doing routine work on the Israeli side of the border fence. One Palestinian — a Hamasnik — was killed in the air strike. Palestinians fired gunshots at the aircraft, instead hitting an Israeli home in Kibbutz Sha’ar Hanegev (it’s okay — the baby was in the shelter).
The Times of Israel notes:
According to the IDF, the improvised explosive device was planted in the area during one of the demonstrations held along the security fence in recent weeks.
• Hamas has been practicing breaching the Gaza security fence to abducting IDF soldiers, and is also interested in sparking wildfires in nearby Israeli agricultural fields, according to Israeli media reports.
Sources in the IDF Southern Command said that chatter on Palestinian social media indicates that, following last week’s “tire-torching campaign” – during which demonstrators used mirrors and set fire to hundreds of tires with the aim of creating a smokescreen to hinder Israeli troops’ counterterrorism efforts – this week, protesters plan a “Molotov campaign” and are likely to hurl large numbers of firebombs over the security fence.
The main concern here is that some of the firebombs could hit agricultural areas that are near the border, sparking potentially massive fires.
• What is Hamas’ end game for the Gaza border clashes?
• IDF to discipline soldiers who filmed sniper video.
• Slovenia’s expected recognition of Palestine was indefinitely frozen amid politics, upcoming elections and even death threats.
• Guatemala to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem on May 16.
• Hamas’s chosen weapon against moderate Muslims is Holocaust denial.
Around the World
• Florida-Israel group cancels Miami-area Independence Day events over safety concerns.
• 22% of young Americans have never heard of the Holocaust.
• The Daily Beast takes a closer look at rising antisemitism in Germany.
Human rights defenders, entrepreneurs, journalists, and victims of anti-Semitism tell The Daily Beast they feel lost and shocked and under attack from many different directions—from Muslim migrants who despise Israel, and from far-right and far-left figures in German politics. Last year, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior reported more than 600 incidents of attacks on Jews and Jewish public spaces across the country.
• Anti-Semitic graffiti painted on Jewish elementary school in Paris.
Commentary
• Worth reading: Einat Wilf raises important points about the relationship between the Holocaust and Israel’s founding, and what it means for today. Read it all.
"On #HolocaustMemorialDay Israelis mourn a vision of a state that could have been home to so many more. Zionism sought a state for the Jews not so that 'never again'. Zionism sought a state for the Jews so that never at all." My essay on Zionism Denial: https://t.co/1k2eoZr8tx
— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) April 11, 2018
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels assessing Israel and Syria.
– Ron Ben-Yishai: The lessons of the Holocaust and Syria
– Ronen Bergman: The Jewish state has a special duty to defend Syrians
– Yoav Zitun: Russian response to Syria strike tests coordination with Israel
– Ben Caspit: Israel ‘alone in fight’ against Iran in Syria
– Yaroslav Trofimov: Israel caught in US-Russia rift over Syria (click via Twitter)
– Judah Ari Gross: Syria strike and its aftermath raise chances of open clashes with Iran
– Ben Sales: After its latest strike on Syria, Israel’s cozy relationship with Russia could be over
– Raphael Ahren: After airstrike in Syria, an Israeli proxy war with Iran looms
– Amos Harel: Revenge by Iran could push Israel to terminate Tehran’s presence in Syria
• Here’s what else I’m reading today
– Larry Haas: Hamas attacks Israel — and the world condemns Israel
– David Harris: Israel vs. Hamas: The case for moral clarity
– Amb. Alan Baker: The events along the border with Gaza
– Shlomo Toren: If you were an Israeli sniper near Gaza, you would shoot too
– New York Post (staff-ed): Israeli Labor party right to boycott Britain’s Labour bigot
– Greg Sheridan: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party allows anti-Semitism to thrive
– MP Luciana Berger: Ken Loach’s threats to Labour MPs who oppose antisemitism is damaging our party
– Gil Troy: Israel at 70: It’s time to reclaim the Z-word, Zionism
Featured image: CC BY-NC Aftab Uzzaman; Einsatzgruppen via Wikimedia Commons; writing via Wikimedia Commons;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
