Today’s Top Stories
1. Hamas claims responsibility for Jerusalem bus bombing earlier this week. The terror organization said that Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, a resident of the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem, was one of its members. His father was arrested by the IDF on Wednesday. Israeli authorities have yet to confirm the identity of the suspected bomber who has subsequently died of his injuries in an Israeli hospital.
2. Israel provides Jordan and Egypt with intelligence assistance in their fight against Islamic State according to a senior Israeli military officer.
3. Outrage as students at the UK’s NUS (National Union of Students) Conference argued against commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. While that argument fell, students still elected a new NUS President with a history of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitic remarks.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Is the $100 million a year the U.S. spends on the Palestinian Authority Security Forces paying off? The Daily Beast examines the complex relationship between the IDF and Palestinian security forces.
• Over two hundred retired Israeli generals, and their Mossad, Shabak and Police equivalents, design a comprehensive plan to address Israel’s immediate security needs before even beginning to address long-term solutions to the Palestinian conflict.
• Ultra-Orthodox man who carried out stabbings at Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade, including killing a 16 year old girl, was convicted in Israeli court.
Mideast Matters
• Tensions high as President Obama seeks allies in Saudi Arabia to fight Islamic State.
• U.S. Supreme Court rules Iran central bank must pay for terrorist attacks.
• Jews who refused to leave Yemen having second thoughts.
• PM Netanyahu to meet Russian President Putin in Moscow for talks on Syria.
Around the World
• Colorado town argues over whether it should have a formal sister-city relationship with the Palestinian city of Nablus.
• Shimon Peres, 92, wishes Queen Elizabeth a happy 90th birthday, says “Life begins at 90.”
• Jews remaining in Ethiopia prepare world’s largest Passover seder.
Commentary/Analysis
• Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren says that presidential candidates have their facts wrong on Israel:
Another salient fact is that every area evacuated by Israel — whether in southern Lebanon or in Gaza — has been transformed into a terror base for the firing thousands of rockets at Israeli neighborhoods. All the candidates agree that Israel has the right to defend itself against these onslaughts, yet questions have been raised about the extent to which Israel should exercise that right.
The answer is simple.
As a sovereign state, Israel takes all reasonable steps to protect its civilians from terrorists as well as all reasonable steps to avoid inflicting civilian casualties on the other side. Those steps, however, cannot be judged separately from a situation in which the terrorists are doing their utmost to kill our civilians while using their own as human shields. Israel does not bomb hospitals, but the terrorists hide out beneath them and hide their rockets in schools and homes. Any appearance of disproportionality is the terrorists’ fault, not Israel’s.
Featured image: CC BY Pedro Ribeiro Simones via flickr with additions by HonestReporting
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