Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel blames Germany for EU support of UNESCO’s latest anti-Israel resolution, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Israel believes that Berlin led the charge for an amended resolution — submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan — which European Union states are likely to vote “yes” on, or abstain.
Now that the 11 EU member states on the 58-member UNESCO Executive Board have given their tacit approval for the document, diplomatic sources said, it would be difficult for Israel to sway other nations to oppose it.
More on the story at Haaretz.
2. As Yom HaZikaron approaches, Israel prepares to mourn its fallen soldiers and victims of terror. See below for more on the story.
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3. Israel and North Korea in war of words after Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman called Kim Jong Un’s regime a “crazy and radical group.” Haaretz explains why there’s no love lost between Jerusalem and Pyongyang:
North Korea is considered one of the world’s most hostile nations toward Israel. In the last decades, it has provided training, arms and various technologies to entities considered enemies of the Jewish state, including Iran, whose missile program benefitted greatly from North Korean assistance.
According to foreign reports, North Korea was also involved in helping Syria build a nuclear reactor, which was destroyed in an attack attributed to Israel in 2007.
4. Six-Day War: 50th Anniversary Resource Primer: The 50th anniversary of Israel’s remarkable victory in the 1967 Six-Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem is fast approaching. HonestReporting has compiled a Resource Primer to mark the event.
Dedicated to the memory of legendary Israeli photojournalist David Rubinger, we’ve gathered background information from a wide variety of sources to give a deeper understanding of how circumstances developed over the weeks and months leading up to the war. Sections will be continuously updated as more relevant content, educational materials, analysis and news items become available. Click here to enter.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Could an Israeli-Turkish pipeline begin transferring natural gas to Europe in the next two-three years? Hurriyet News and columnist Selin Nasi take a closer look.
• The Wall St. Journal visited Eliad, an area of the Golan Heights adjacent to Islamic State-controlled Syrian territory and the Jordanian border. Click via Twitter.
“My grapes are just 10 meters from the border fence. Sometimes I hear the booms on the other side. Sometimes I see people on the other side. They look like shepherds, but who knows,” said the Israeli winemaker. “It’s crazy.”
So far, Islamic State hasn’t bothered his vineyard. “I am here all alone on my tractor at night and I am not afraid.”
• On Sunday night and Monday day, Israelis pay tribute to fallen soldiers and terror victims on Yom HaZikaron. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the Memorial Day based on Haaretz and government figures.
– 23,544: Total number of fallen since 1860, when Jews began moving outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.
– 60: soldiers and security personnel who died since last Yom HaZikaron.
– 37: wounded veterans who succumbed to injuries since last Yom HaZikaron
– 11: civilians killed since last Yom HaZikaron
– 9,157: bereaved parents
– 4,881: widows
– 1,843: orphans under age of 30.
– 2,895: Israeli civilians killed in Israeli in hostile acts since 1948
– 122: foreign national civilians killed in hostile acts in Israel since 1948.
– 100: Israeli civilians killed in terror attacks abroad
Israel also remembers the Druze, Bedouin and Christian soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for the state.
• On Monday night, the solemnity of Yom HaZikaron gives way to Independence Day. Ahead of Israel’s 69th birthday, here’s a by the numbers look at Israel’s growing population based on Central Bureau of Statistics via the Times of Israel.
– 8,680,000: overall Israeli population
– 74.4%: Israel’s Jewish population
– 20.8%: Israel’s Arab population
– 4.4%: other ethnic groups in Israel’s population
– 174,000: babies born in last 12 months
– 44,000: deaths in last 12 months
– 30,000: new immigrants in last 12 months
– 1.9%: population growth in last 12 months
Around the World
• Jewish officials hail Austria’s decision to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism already accepted by Israel and the UK.
• Turns out a terror suspect arrested with a rucksack full of knives outside the British parliament building on Thursday was an alumnus of a 2010 Gaza convoy. Khalid Mohamed Omar Ali, a 27-year-old British national, joined the “Hope to Gaza” convoy, which ran parallel to a separate Viva Palestina overland convoy organized by British politician George Galloway. More on Ali’s arrest at The Guardian and Daily Mail.
• Daily Mail: London Metropolitan police armed with machine guns threw Jewish audience members out of a pro-Palestinian event in the parliament building after they asked “disruptive questions.”
• Bad news for BDS efforts on campuses:
– Bath University students reject Israel boycott.
– New Jersey university students vote down BDS resolution.
• Anti-Semitic incidents are at record levels in the UK but declining in France. Why?
• Holocaust denial posters continue to be found posted at Australian universities.
• Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams backs move to get David Irving’s Holocaust-denying books off Manchester University public shelves. More at The Guardian.
Commentary/Analysis
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels about Israel and UK academia.
– Brendan O’Neill: This never-ending meltdown over Israel is the distress of fools
– Amb. Mark Regev: I accepted invitation to speak at SOAS to put forward Israel’s case
– Daniel Sugarman: Malia Bouattia has gone, but the NUS still struggles with anti-Semitism
– Daily Telegraph (staff-ed): Student groups must stop targeting Israel
• More broken quills and busted keyboards about the alleged Israeli airstrike on an Iranian arms depot last week:
– Jonathan Schanzer: Russia risks showdown with Israel over Hezbollah in Syria
– Benny Avni: Did Moscow green-light an Israeli attack in Syria?
– Alex Fishman: Greenlighting an Israeli attack on Iran in Syria?
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Israel’s covert war against Hezbollah’s artillery
• Writing in the Arizona Law Review, Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich examine the issue of “Palestine, uti possidetis juris, and the borders of Israel.”
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yossi Melman: Don’t forget the foreign fighters who sacrificed for Israel’s independence
– Mayor Nir Barkat: Jerusalem rooted in 3,000 years of history.
– Avi Issacharoff: Eyeing his trip to Trump, Abbas takes on Hamas, reins in hunger-strike protests
– Thane Rosenbaum: Palestinians are rewarding terrorists. The US should stop enabling them.
– Ruthie Blum: Birthday suit
– Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman: Mahmoud Abbas goes to Washington: What is at stake?
– Dennis Ross: Common threats offer new opportunities for Israel-GCC cooperation
– Melanie Phillips: The British Foreign Office remains true to type
– Gabe Friedman: Why Radiohead’s Israel show matters
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): Getting away with murder
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Hanan Ashrawi and James Zogby.
Featured image: by Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90; flags CC BY-NC-ND Avital Pinnick; jet CC BY-NC Israel Defense Forces; Williams CC BY National Assembly for Wales;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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