Today’s Top Stories
1. You’ll be floored to learn that replacing a carpet in the Dome of the Rock is raising an unholy controversy. Israeli antiquities officials say the Islamic Waqf isn’t letting them document previously unseen floor designs; the Waqf called the Israeli charges threadbare. Are archaeologists’s concerns being swept under the rug? AP leaves us with “he said-she said” (which explains the latest from UNESCO).
The cryptic geometric designs have sparked the imagination of some researchers about what secrets may lay beneath.
Ancient Jewish traditions say the gold-cased Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Ten Commandments, may have been hidden away in a chamber when the First Jewish Temple was destroyed some 2,500 years ago. It’s an Indiana Jones-type mystery that touches upon a holy grail for biblical enthusiasts.
While Jerusalem may be the most excavated city in the world, the Dome of the Rock and its hilltop plaza are an archaeological gold mine that has never been properly dug because of the political sensitivities surrounding the site.
2. An Egyptian court sentenced former president Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison. He dodged the death penalty after being found guilty for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters in 2012. BBC coverage suffices. You’ll better understand the story if you read Calvinball in Cairo.
3. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reportedly injured in a March air strike; The Guardian‘s source says Baghdadi’s making a slow recovery but isn’t currently involved with running ISIS day-to-day.
4. Success: Times of London Removes Claim That Israel Restricts Basic Goods to Gaza: HonestReporting corrects the record.
5. HR Radio: Students, Bus Stop Terror, and Jerusalem: Yarden Frankl discusses anti-Semitism and BDS activity on college campuses, a report on Arab harassment of Jews at a holy site that omits key context on Jerusalem, and more. Click below to hear the whole interview on the Voice of Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Jerusalem Post: Khaled Koutineh confirmed to police that he deliberately set out to hit Israelis when he plowed his car into Jerusalem bus stop. Shalom Yohai Cherki, 25, was killed; another woman remains hospitalized.
• A delegation of PA ministers visiting Gaza to work out problems with salaries for the strip’s civil servants left early after Hamas placed them in virtual house arrest. According to the Jerusalem Post, the ministers and other senior PA officials were prevented from leaving their hotel, receiving visitors, or talking to anyone. See also Reuters and Maan News.
• The PA received $450 million in previously frozen tax revenue from Israel yesterday.
• New Hamas import taxes leave Gaza merchants fuming
• Yom HaZikaron, by the numbers (based on Jerusalem Post)
23,320: dead soldiers and victims of terror since Israel’s founding
9,753: bereaved families
4,958: widows
2,049: orphans up to age 30
553: soldiers whose burial place is unknown
116: soldiers and terror victims who died in the last year
131: bereaved families from the fatalities of this past year
• Word up to the US ex-pats living in Jerusalem: The US Supreme Court is taking of care of unfinished business, and may announce a ruling on the Jerusalem passport case on Tuesday morning.
The two yet-to-be-announced decisions from late last year involve who in the government can list the word “Israel” on a passport for a person born in Jerusalem, and what is the boundary between protected free speech and threats made on Facebook.
Zivotofsky v. Kerry was argued on Nov. 3, 2014 and it remains one of two cases from November that haven’t been decided or rescheduled for arguments.
Around the World
• The State Department said it’s open to Iranian participation in Syrian peace efforts — if Tehran changes its policies. Spokesperson Marie Harf was asked to react to Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif’s New York Times op-ed. At least the White House reaction to Zarif’s piece was more clear cut than the State Department’s. Reuters coverage.
The White House suggested that it viewed the Iranian foreign minister’s appeal as disingenuous, particularly regarding Yemen. The United States says Iran has armed Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have taken control of much of the country.
• The only motion that failed to pass at Amnesty International’s annual conference was a proposed campaign against anti-Semitism. The human rights organization, which often campaigns against Israel with singular focus, explained why, with the money quote from the Jewish Chronicle.
Amnesty International UK press officer Neil Durkin said: “After a really interesting debate where everyone condemned discrimination against all ethnic and religious groups, our membership decided not to pass this resolution calling for a campaign with a single focus.
• Argentine prosecutors dropped charges against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who was accused of covering up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community center. CNN coverage.
• The JTA reports a number of Australian food companies are removing symbols of kosher certification from their packaging amid questions about Islamic halal certification. Rumor has it that fees from halal certification are funding Islamic terror, and “the companies reportedly believe it is better to have no identifying religious certification at all.”
So, does Australian halal really fund terror? Yes. No. Maybe.
Commentary/Analysis
• A Bloomberg News poll of partisan support for Israel is used by Slate‘s William Saletan to question the loyalty of Israel’s supporters. James Taranto (Wall St. Journal via Google News) debunks the argument. In a nutshell:
It should be obvious that supporting allies is in itself in the national interest.
• Bret Stephens (Wall St. Journal via Google News) nailed my own thinking on where the Israel-US relationship is headed.
Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, every U.S. president took the view that strength abroad and strength at home were mutually reinforcing; that global security made us more prosperous, and that prosperity made us more secure.
Then along came Mr. Obama with his mantra of “nation building at home” and his notion that an activist foreign policy is a threat to the social democracy he seeks to build. Under his administration, domestic and foreign policy have been treated as a zero-sum game: If you want more of the former, do less of the latter. The result is a world of disorder, and an Israel that, for the first time in its history, must seek its security with an America that, say what it will, has nobody’s back but its own.
I’m not against nation-building, but see how Tom Friedman made the case for isolationism and my response about the US making itself irrelevant in the Mideast.
• Today’s recommended reading:
An Expat Reflects on Israel’s Memorial and Independence Days
• Other commentary/analysis that caught my eye:
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Arabs loathe Hezbollah
– Dennis Ross: How to save the Iran deal
– Eliana Rudee: We need to start taking anti-Semites at their word
– Matthew Kroenig: A nuclear turning point
– Roger Cohen: Muslims and Jews on the Seine
– Norman Bailey: Putin throws a spanner in the works
– Diana Moukalled: From Aleppo to Yarmouk, all is “unreasonable”
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Ed Yourdon with additions by HonestReporting;
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