Today’s Top Stories
1. The White House is nudging France to hold off on measures in the UN to restart Mideast peace talks. According to Foreign Policy, this “reflects concern over the potential political perils of pursuing dual initiatives that are deeply unpopular with Israel and its supporters in the U.S. Congress.”
The American pitch for a delay, which has not previously been reported, comes just weeks after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced that he would push in a matter of “weeks” for a new U.N. “parameters” resolution that would set a fixed timetable for negotiating a political settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has appealed to his French counterpart to put the decision off until at least after the deadline for Iran talks wraps up at the end of June, or possibly even later, after the administration has secured congressional support for the deal, according to diplomatic sources.
2. A former employee of Al Jazeera America is suing the network, alleging anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and gender bias. Two Al Jazeera America executives resigned but the key figure at the eye of the storm denied everything in an email to Washington Post.
3. The death toll from the Nepal earthquake passed 5,000 as aid efforts continued.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel is still searching for Or Asraf, the only Israeli still unaccounted for. 40 other Israels whose locations were known haven’t been reached yet. According to the Times of Israel, Israeli officials hope to finish extricating everyone by the end of today.
YNet adds that “around 70 Israelis who arrived in Kathmandu earlier in the week decided not to evacuate on the state-funded El Al flight.” More at Haaretz.
Israel and the Palestinians
• According to Israeli press reports, Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif has returned to active duty. Deif has survived a number of IDF assassination attempts — most recently an airstrike during Operation Protective Edge which it is believed critically injured the terror mastermind.
And related Israeli reports say Deif had planned a large-scale terror attack during last year’s Gaza war, only to have the attack vetoed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.
• AFP: Gaza youths demonstrating for reconstruction and national unity were beaten by Hamas policemen.
• Whoda thought Mohammed Dahlan — the rival to Mahmoud Abbas — was capable of this?
• So much for spinning Bashar Assad as the protector of the Palestinians:
Damascus cancels meeting with PLO over Yarmouk crisis.
• The US put three Hezbollah operatives on a special “terror watch list.” Two are responsible for the 2012 bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria which killed six people. The third was involved in a terror plot in Thailand. More at the Times of Israel.
Around the World
• In Yemen, Saudi-led aircraft destroyed the runway of Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane from landing. Taking out the runway complicates the delivery of humanitarian aid. According to Reuters:
Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told Reuters that the airport was bombed after an Iranian aircraft refused to coordinate with the coalition and the pilot ignored orders to turn back.
• Saudi King Salman appointed his nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince. Nayef currently serves as the kingdom’s “counter-terror tsar” and interior minister. The Guardian notes that Nayef is the first of generation to reach this standing: all of the country’s kings till now were sons of the kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz al-Saud.
In 2011, Nayef sued The Independent for slander after Robert Fisk incorrectly wrote that the prince gave police orders to fire on unarmed protesters during the early days of the Arab Spring. The paper published a correction and paid substantial damages.
• Thank you NPR, for reminding us of something so obvious, we take it for granted. Baltimorons who injure cops, start fires, loot stores, or vandalize property are not “protesters.” They are rioters. Words matter. Keep this in mind next time there’s a debate about Palestinian activists vs. Palestinian terrorists.
• Berlin police apologized for making soccer fans remove an Israeli flag.
• Thumbs up to Facebook for taking action against a Russian anti-Semitic slur:
Facebook has taken down dozens of pages containing a Russian-language phrase that combines a Ukrainian pejorative for “Jew” with the name of a nationalist whose troops murdered Jews.
• Iran seized a cargo ship in the Straits of Hormuz. The Maersk Tigris is owned by a Danish company and flagged to the Marshall Islands. More on the story at Bloomberg News.
Commentary/Analysis
• Haviv Rettig Gur‘s fed up with people tying together Israel’s humanitarian aid to Nepal with the Palestinian conflict.
The IDF doesn’t go to Nepal to avoid the Palestinian issue. It goes because Israelis have honed emergency medicine into an art form, and because the IDF has never quite shed its founding culture of adventurousness, and, above all, because there are people out there who desperately need help.
• Tweet of the day from David Hazony:
• It wasn’t major news in Israel that the government refused to allow South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, into the country to meet his Palestinian counterpart in Ramallah. While South African Jews oppose the ban, Ben Levitas, of the South African Zionist Federation, got op-ed space in the Pretoria News to argue in favor of the snub.
• For more commentary, see
– Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians the media doesn’t talk about
– Emmanuel Navon: How Israel appoints judges is none of the EU’s business
– Eliezer Marom: Israeli strike to thwart arms to Hezbollah worth the risks
– Alex Ryvchen: Activists corrupt free speech in defense of Jake Lynch
– Kai Bird: The ghosts that haunt an Iran accord
– Wall St. Journal: The pirates of Tehran (staff-ed, via Google News)
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Ed Yourdon with additions by HonestReporting; peace CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Celeste Damiani;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
