Today’s Top Stories
BREAKING: a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv has left several wounded. At the time of publishing this IDNS we are still in very early stages and information is limited, but apparently the attack took place either near or in several hotels at the Tel Aviv waterfront and a Palestinian suspect has reportedly been placed under arrest. The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz have continuing updates.
According to journalist Seth Frantzman, Palestinian media is reporting this as an attack on “settlers” in “occupied Palestine.” To be clear: they’re talking about Tel Aviv.
. #Palestinian media refers to the attack in #TelAviv #happeningnow as happening in “occupied #Palestine“; “settlers” stabbed; in TelAviv pic.twitter.com/CQMiLLeFSI
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) April 23, 2017
1. Several mortar shells from Syria landed inside Israel this week. Israel responded by attacking the locations from which the mortars had been fired. The IDF said:
The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel or the security of its residents and will see the Syrian regime responsible for what happens within its territory.
These sorts of events have happened from time to time, and it is not always clear whether the fire into Israel is accidental or an intentional attempt to test Israel’s responses. In either case this calls to mind a quote from Mario Puzo’s classic novel and movie The Godfather:
Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.
Indeed, Israel’s consistent, strong responses seem to have caused fighting parties in Syria to be especially careful about not letting their conflict spill across the Israeli border.
2. The Palestinian terrorist accused of killing a British student last week will be paid £800 (about $1,000) per month by the Palestinian government. To put this in perspective: an average Palestinian worker earns about $450 per month, which means that in reward for one day of terror, Hannah Bladon’s murderer will receive more than double a typical full time Palestinian salary, every month for the rest of his life…or at least until the world finally puts a stop to this practice.
The Palestinian Authority government, in defiance of international pressure, is actually increasing its budget for salaries to terrorists: in 2016 it was up to $180 Million. That budget is funded in part by the UK which provides £25 million (about $32 Million) per year in foreign aid. In other words, UK taxpayers are actually paying a salary to the terrorist who murdered one of their own citizens. This issue grew in visibility after the near murder of UK citizen Kay Wislon, who’s would-be murderers reportedly receive £9,000 per year. Wilson survived only because the terrorists had believed she was already dead.
In case you missed the story when it first came out: Last week Jamil Tamimi had stabbed a UK exchange student to death on Jerusalem’s light rail train. The victim, 21 year old Hannah Bladon, was a student University of Birmingham and had been doing an exchange program at Israel’s Hebrew University.
Like hundreds of other terrorists, Palestinian gvmt to pay monthly salary to terrorist who murdered British student https://t.co/O55msMf8mL
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 23, 2017
3. Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to meet with US Defense Secretary James Mattis on Friday. One topic that will feature prominently on the agenda will be Israel’s concern about Iran establishing a permanent base in Syria the day after the civil war there ends. Many of us have been so preoccupied by the horrors of the Syrian civil war, that it is easy to forget the dangers yet to come after the fighting comes to an end. In this case, Israel may have a number of receptive ears: Mattis and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have echoed similar concerns about Iran’s influence in Syria, as has US ally Saudi Arabia.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Gaza is suffering an electricity shortage, and it turns out to have nothing to do with Israel but rather political rivalries between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Here’s how it works: Israel provides fuel for electric plants to the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank (the “PA”), who then sells it to Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization that rules in Gaza. Yet Hamas has stopped paying its electric bills to the PA, and the PA has decided to stop providing fuel until the bill is paid. Meanwhile, Hamas seems to have no shortage of funds for its continuing construction of terror tunnels, which cost roughly $3 Million a piece. The real losers in all of this? The people of Gaza, who are about to face a typically hot Mediterranean summer with limited electrical power. This background will be worth remembering when the inevitable blaming of Israel begins to hit the news.
• The May Fair Hotel in London has refused a request by the Palestinian Authority government to screen a movie called “Marwan: A film about the life and struggle of Marwan Barghouti.” Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for terrorism and murder, is also a co-founder and leader of the the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an internationally recognized terror organization that targets Israeli civilians for violent attacks. The PA government had requested the screening to take place on Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. In case you didn’t know the meaning of the Yiddish word “chutzpa,” this is pretty much it.
• One of two Palestinian women from Gaza who tried to smuggle explosives into the Israeli hospital where she was receiving cancer treatments has been released by Israeli authorities. Apparently, authorities concluded that she was duped into carrying an object that contained explosives without her knowledge. However, the other suspect is still being held.
Around the World
• The Israeli cabinet is expected to ratify an agreement on Sunday with China relating to the employment of Chinese workers in Israel. Israel and China engaged in negotiations for several years over an agreement on Chinese citizens coming to work in Israel. In 2015, the talks faltered over China’s demand that Chinese laborers in Israel not be employed in the settlements. The official reason given by the Chinese was concern for the workers’ personal safety, but officials at the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed the view that the real reason was political, relating to the fact that China and the rest of the international community view the settlements as illegal and their locations as occupied territory. While this is not an unfamiliar story, it does carry a certain irony: many of the construction workers who do work in West Bank settlements are Palestinian.
•. For some time, European leaders and the United Nations have been pressuring FIFA (the International Federation of Association Football – that’s “soccer” for you Americans…) to take action against Israeli soccer teams based in the West Bank, while Palestinian leaders have been pressuring FIFA to exclude Israel from competition entirely. It appears the issue is once again on FIFA’s agenda and the pressure may be about to work, as a cable from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to various embassies leaked by an anonymous official to Haaretz, seems to indicate:
Our growing assessment is that the FIFA Congress is liable to make a decision on suspending six Israeli teams that play over the Green Line, or even on suspending Israel from FIFA.
Israeli diplomats in a number of countries have reportedly been directed by the Foreign Ministry to try to persuade host countries to ask FIFA to take the matter off the agenda.
Commentary/Analysis
• As we approach Yom Hashoah (Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day) Israeli MK Einat Wilf discusses a modern counterpart to Holocaust denial: Zionism denial. She points out that when President Obama spoke directly to the Arab world at Cairo University in 2009:
…he did not understand that by reaffirming the dangerous equation that the global legitimacy for Israel is rooted in the Holocaust, he fanned the motivation to engage in Holocaust denial for those who continue to believe, as they always have, that Israel is not a legitimate state.
In what may be the most succinct summary of what Zionism truly is (at least that I’ve seen in a long time) MK Wilf explains:
Israel exists not because the Europeans dumped the surviving Jews in the colonially controlled Middle East. Israel exists because the Jews willed it into existence. The modern state of Israel exists because the Jews who created it believed themselves to be descendants of the Israelites and Judeans who were sovereign there in ancient times and paid a high price for preserving their separate existence as a people.
• Journalist and analyst Tom Gross weighs in on Donald Trump’s decision to carry out a limited bombing campaign in response to Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons. At this point the topic is not a new one, but some of Gross’s insights are. Worth a look…
• It’s been a while since Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been front page news, with much argument over whether Iran truly is working to develop nuclear weapons now that the JCPOA (the “Iran nuclear deal”) is in place. Jenna Lifhits analyzes Iran’s current centrifuge activity and concludes that the nuclear ambitions remain as alive and active as ever.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jamie Dettmer: Iranian Militia Role in Syria, Iraq Prompts Alarm
– Dani Dayan: Support for Israel Must Not Become Partisan
– Elliot Abrams: Stop Supporting Palestinian Terror
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