Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel laid to rest Staff Sgt. Ronen Lubarsky, who succumbed to injuries during an IDF arrest raid near Ramallah. The 20-year-old member of the elite Duvdevan was hit in the head by a slab of marble dropped by Palestinians from the roof of a building in the al-Am’ari refugee camp. Ynet and the Times of Israel were on hand for the funeral.
2. Israel begins construction of underwater barrier to prevent Hamas infiltration by sea. The Jerusalem Post reports the barrier, which will stretch out into the Mediterranean from the southern town of Zikim, will be completed by the end of this year.
The barrier is made up of three layers including one below the sea level, a layer of armored stone and a third layer in the form of a mound. In addition to the three layers, a fence will surround the breakwater in order to provide a final security measure.
3. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry removed baby Layla al-Ghandour’s name from its “March of Return” death toll pending the results of a pathologist’s report. The cause of the eight-month old girl’s death has been in dispute. Palestinians claim she died of tear gas inhalation but a Gaza doctor leaked to the press that Ghandour had a pre-existing congenital heart defect and did not believe the tear gas caused her death. The Guardian broke the development.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Mahmoud Abbas is not being discharged from Ramallah’s Istishari Arab Hospital, his doctors announced today, contradicting an earlier announcement that the 83-year-old Palestinian leader would be discharged today. No explanation was offered for the abrupt reversal.
• IDF tanks shelled Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza after discovering a powerful explosive planted along the border fence this morning. Army sappers detonated the bomb in a controlled explosion. The Iran-backed Islamic Jihad confirmed two of its members were killed in Israel’s retaliatory strike. On Saturday night, Israel launched air strikes on Hamas positions in response to an attempted infiltration.
• Burning kites by the numbers, via Ynet.
– More than 300: Incendiary kites flown into Israel since April 13.
– 100: fires sparked in Israel
– 3,000: acres of wheat destroyed
• Experts weighed in at The Media Line on what an International Criminal Court probe of Gaza war crimes would mean for Israel.
• Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected petitions to stop IDF using live fire in Gaza border riots. Justices unanimously agree “that Hamas and other terrorist organizations were posing a huge challenge to the security forces by deliberately mixing terrorists in with civilians, including women and children, to make it hard for the army to pick out the former.”
• Worth reading from the Los Angeles Times: For Hamas, the deadly protests against Israel are a welcome diversion
• The South African cabinet got egg on its face after tweeting a call for Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Israel evacuated its settlements and military presence in 2005.
Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip 13 years ago, @GovernmentZA. But thanks for playing. https://t.co/Mu2R0X8frj
— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) May 24, 2018
• In recent days, MKs Michael Oren and Tzipi Livni appeared in the media defending the IDF’s response to Gaza violence. So did army officers who talked to the Daily Telegraph.
• There’s a tug of war going on in the Saudi media over relations with Israel
• Mark your calendars: Britain’s Prince William arrives in Israel on June 25. His Mideast visit includes stops in Amman, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Full details of the itinerary have yet to be announced. William, the Duke of Cambridge, is third in line to the throne and next month’s trip will mark the first ever official visit to Israel or the Palestinian Authority by a senior British royal. Take your pick of Ynet or Times of Israel coverage.
Window Into Israel
• US paid Netanyahu confidant’s firm $150k while embassy was being moved to Jerusalem. Sigh.
• Sheldon Adelson, who owns Israel HaYom, refused to consent to an alleged attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu to make an illicit deal with a rival newspaper according to Israeli media reports. In what is known as Case 2000, the prime minister is under investigation for pursuing a quid pro quo with Yediot Aharonot publisher Arnon Mozes in which Netanyahu would advance legislation handicapping Israel HaYom in exchange for more favorable coverage.
According to the TV report, Netanyahu asked Adelson to help consummate the deal, but the American casino tycoon refused. Evidence provided by a state’s witness in the case, former Netanyahu aide Nir Hefetz, shows that Adelson acted with propriety, the report said.
No details were provided on the manner in which Netanyahu allegedly asked Adelson to assist him.
Around the World
• A British court convicted a woman for posting Holocaust-denying videos on YouTube. “Alison Chabloz, 53, who describes herself as a ‘holocaust revisionist’ was prosecuted over three anti-Semitic songs she posted on YouTube in September 2016,” the Daily Mail reports.
• According to a poll picked up by the JTA, the majority of French respondents say Zionism is a Jewish conspiracy.
• Pro-Palestinian activists set off stink bombs at NZ screening of Ben-Gurion film.
• Pro-BDS protesters shut down a meeting of the U. California-Santa Barbara student senate when they realized a motion to call on the university to divest from companies “that provide military support to the occupation of Palestinian territories” was not going to pass. More at The Algemeiner and the UCSB Daiy Nexus.
• It’s hard for me to believe this accusation, but the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine accused Islamic State-aligned rebels of digging up graves in the Yarmouk refugee camp in an effort to find the bodies of three Israeli MIAs. The PFLP is aligned with Bashar Assad, whose forces captured Yarmouk. The three MIAs, Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman disappeared during the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yacoub and are presumed dead.
This is not the first time that Assad’s supporters have accused Syrian rebels of receiving support from Israel in an attempt to undermine their legitimacy.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was caught on film chanting ‘death to US, UK, Israel.’
• CNBC reported that Russia “conducted the world’s longest surface-to-air missile test.” The S-500 surface-to-air missile system is said to be capable of intercepting, among other things, the stealth F-35 jets which Israel used for the first time in air strikes on Syria earlier this month.
The S-500 surface-to-air missile system successfully struck a target 299 miles away, which the U.S. assessed is 50 miles further than any known test, said the sources, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.
The Labour leader is described as ‘bored, uninterested and condescending’ in a leaked account of his meeting with Jewish leaders last month to discuss the issue.
It suggests he lacks the ‘emotional or intellectual ability’ to comprehend their demands for more action to tackle the problem.
By contrast, he sprang into life with a ‘convulsion’ when told that his support for a ‘two state solution’ in the rift between Israel and Palestine meant he was a ‘Zionist’.
• Man arrested after 200 headstones vandalized with swastikas at an Illinois cemetery.
• German Jewish shareholders demand probe into bank’s BDS-linked accounts.
Commentary/Analysis
• Harnessing the power of the crowd certainly has its place, and I’m all for holding the media accountable. But I don’t share Elon Musk’s faith in the people — no matter how well-meaning he may be — to rate the “core truth” of news articles or the credibility of reporters. As crowdsourcing became a thing, it opened a lot of doors for people trying to game the truth. See Devin Coldewey‘s take.
• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend. . .
– Matthew Brodsky: The media’s Palestine narrative reads like fan fiction
– Avi Issacharoff: If you’re asking about Abbas’s successor, you’re not paying attention
– David Weinberg: The diplomatic day-after Abbas
– Zvi Bar’el: To get Iran out of Syria, Israel and the US must cooperate with Putin
– Ben-Dror Yemini: The boomerang effect of anti-Israel lies
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: The false hope of a Hamas hudna
– Shlomo Puterkovsky: Between UNHRC, ICC and EU: Palestinian legal war on Israel
– Clifford May: For Hamas and its friends, the worse the better
– Mark Humphrys: Solving Gaza crisis is easy — focus on living, not killing
– Los Angeles Times (staff-ed): How do fewer schools and jobs and more hunger help the Palestinians or the cause of peace?
– Seth Lipsky: The hypocrisy of American election investigations into Israel
– Ron Kampeas: Congress wants to define anti-Semitism for you. Here’s how that can get messy.
– Alexander Apfel: Livingstone’s resignation does not exonerate Jeremy Corbyn
– Dan Hodges: Stamping out anti-Semitism? No… Labour’s sinking back into its racist swam
– Ruthie Blum: UNRWA’s “Palestinian refugee” fraud?
– Efraim Karsh: The privileged Palestinian ‘refugees’
– Philip Carl Salzman: Canada: A “different” kind of antisemitism?
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Emiliano; candles via Wikimedia Commons and pxhere; Vector trash can by Vecteezy; Corbyn via YouTube/VICE News; crowdsourcing CC0 Pixabay;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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