Today’s Top Stories
1. Hezbollah reportedly building an Iranian missile base in Syria.
2. Palestinian Christians have been very unhappy with Hamas and the PA in recent days. According to the Jerusalem Post, their bitterness with Hamas stems from the destruction of antiquities at the remains of Byzantine church discovered in Gaza last week. More on the story at the Middle East Eye.
They said that bulldozers removed the antiquities and continued with their work without supervision. They accused the two big Palestinian parties of seeking to obliterate Christian history and identity in the Holy Land.
Prominent Palestinian Christians, already angry with the PA over the detention of Syriac archbishop Swerios Malki Murad, also accuse the PA of “giving Islamic names to two Christian and Jewish holy sites in Nablus – a monastery and the stairway known as the Jews’ Steps.”
Gaza archaeologists protest development at site of ancient church https://t.co/2PSVSn59cD pic.twitter.com/McT14anlqS
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 7, 2016
3. Are Palestinians building an illegal city south of Hebron?
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Hamas has hired 1,000 Palestinians to dig tunnels, according to Israeli media reports.
The report cited Israeli officials as saying that the funds Hamas uses to invest in rebuilding its network of underground passageways could instead be used to construct full neighborhoods in the Strip.
Around the World
• Vice News visited Paris to get a better sense of the Jewish community’s mood. There’s quite a bit of fear, and parents are increasingly taking their children out of public schools. Robert Ejness, the head of the Jewish community’s umbrella organization, CRIF, attributed a rise in anti-Semitic incidents to the failed integration of of Muslim immigrants, and was pessimistic about 2016.
The numbers for last year were very high, over 900 anti-Semitic attacks, and we believe this year will not be better.
• Swastikas discovered in the Jewish section of cemetery in southern France.
• Austria’s anti-Semitism watchdog reported an 80 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents. In particular, anti-Semitic internet postings more than doubled.
• York University’s new ‘inclusion’ committee is stacked with anti-Israel faculty, according to Jewish students at the Toronto campus. The committee was created in response to outrage over a prominently displayed painting of a Palestinian wearing a scarf featuring a map of a borderless Israel holding rocks behind his back as he looks at an Israeli settlement. A prominent York U. donor, Paul Bronfman, cancelled an arrangement to donate video equipment after the administration said it couldn’t remove the offensive painting.
• A member of the Stanford University Student Senate apologized after saying it’s not anti-Semitic to say Jews control the economy and media. Gabriel Knight made the comments at a senate debate on guidelines for defining anti-Semitism. JTA coverage.
• Pro-Palestinian protesters who barged into a lecture by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at San Francisco State University failed to disrupt the talk. Barkat’s on a speaking tour of US campuses; next week, he’ll be appearing at New York’s Columbia University. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• A number of writers are bent out of shape because the PEN American Center’s annual World Voices Festival in New York includes the Israeli embassy as one of the event’s sponsors. But the literary organization brushed off a letter signed by 100 writers, including award-winning authors such as Junot Díaz, Richard Ford, Alice Walker, and Louise Erdrich.
According to a PEN American Center spokesperson, the General Consulate of Israel provided a small contribution to underwrite the costs of airfare, hotel, per diem, interpreters and related expenses for individual Israeli writers selected for participation by the festival.
• Bernie Sanders has yet to correct his claim that Israel killed ‘over 10,000’ Palestinian innocents. The head of the Democratic Party’s Israel branch, Hillel Schenker, defended the candidate, saying, “his forte is domestic and not international affairs.”
Commentary/Analysis
• Brandeis University held a two-day conference on Israel and the media featuring — among others — former New York Times bureau chiefs Ethan Bronner and Jodi Rudoren, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. Gary Rosenblatt shared his impressions.
https://twitter.com/rubin_alyssa/status/716718885819531264
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Shadi Khalloul: Israel’s Christian minority
– Yoel Meltzer: The Arab-Israeli conflict: Time to move on
– Emily Shire: Why are Oberlin’s students so silent about anti-Semitism?
– Jonathan Tobin: Why Bernie exaggerates about Gaza
– Tariq Alhomayed: Why is Iran ‘openly’ announcing its presence in Syria?
– Nawaf Obaid: The Salman doctrine: the Saudi reply to Obama’s weakness
– Washington Post: Iran should pay a price for its ballistic missile test
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Patrick White with additions by HonestReporting; Erdrich CC BY-NC slowking;
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