Today’s Top Stories
1. Hamas and the Salafists are duking it out in Gaza. I’m not clear on the chronological order of events here, but here’s what’s going on in Gaza:
– A bombing outside the Hamas security headquarters (a perimeter wall was damaged).
– An ISIS threat of “dire consequences” if Hamas doesn’t release a detained Salafist sheikh.
– Hamas demolishing a Salafist mosque.
Foreign Policy ties it all together, suggesting that the rivalry is spilling over from the Yarmouk refugee camp. Or are they competing for Gaza too?
2. Making the sausage: As Wednesday evening’s deadline for a governing coalition looms, Israeli politics is shifting into overdrive. Likud already had coalition agreements with Kulanu and United Torah Judaism (see YNet for the contents of their agreements), while Shas signed on yesterday.
Avigdor Lieberman resigned as foreign minister, saying he’ll take the Yisrael Beiteinu party into opposition. That leaves HaBayit HaYehudi’s Naftali Bennett, who may try leverage himself for control of the foreign ministry or other concessions.
Shas urged Yitzhak Herzog to bring the Zionist Union and its 24 seats in for a unity government but “Buji” isn’t budging.
Assuming Bennett joins the coalition, Likud would have a razor-thin 61-seat coalition, which Haaretz says would be sworn in Monday. If Benyamin Netanyahu is unable to form a coalition, President Reuven Rivlin will task Herzog with building a government. As things go down to the wire, last word for now goes to Chemi Shalev.
3. In the wake of allegations of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and gender bias against Al Jazeera America, a third executive resigned. Mary McGinnis was AJAM’s senior vice president of news gathering, a very high level position. According to Dominic Patten, more resignations may be coming. Is AJAM in turmoil? The allegations surfaced in a $15 million lawsuit by ex-employee Matthew Luke.
Luke claims Mahmud made remarks including, “whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell.” The suit also alleges that Mahmud exhibited “overt misogynistic behavior,” including removing female employees from projects and excluding women from certain emails and meetings.
The network’s interim CEO, Ehab Al Shihabi, called the charges “absurd.”
4. Breaking the Silence: A Middleman For Anonymous Sources: Breaking the Silence’s report doesn’t meet accepted standards that journalists themselves apply to their own reports.
5. Is it Time for a New Law of War? Which side has the advantage – terrorists firing rockets behind human shields or armies trying to stop them?
6. HR Radio: The BBC’s Guerin Defense and Jimmy Carter’s Praise for Hamas: Yarden Frankl discusses the BBC and its woeful response to complaints when its reporter claimed there was no evidence of Hamas using human shields. Click below to hear the whole interview on the Voice of Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Lauryn Hill cancelled her show in Rishon LeZion. The BDS movement campaigned vigorously on social media to get the R&B singer to back out. The Grammy Award-winning singer wrote on her website that she called off the gig because she wasn’t able to schedule another appearance in Ramallah:
I’ve wanted very much to bring our live performance to this part of the world, but also to be a presence supporting justice and peace. It is very important to me that my presence or message not be misconstrued, or a source of alienation to either my Israeli or my Palestinian fans.
Whatever you make of her statement, she didn’t endorse the boycott movement. As Avi Mayer points out:
• Fatah accuses Hamas of seeking Saudi role in Palestinian affairs.
Last week, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh appealed to Saudi Arabia to replace Egypt as the main mediator between the Islamist movement and Fatah.
Saudi Arabia’s new monarch has reportedly indicated his desire to improve the kingdom’s ties with Hamas, which has been largely isolated by the Arab world and is seeking urgent financial support.
• Did UK public money support George Galloway’s work for Viva Palestina? That’s what a former Galloway is claiming: The Times of London writes:
A former aide to George Galloway claims that she spent just a quarter of her time on his parliamentary duties.
Aisha Ali-Khan says she was kept busy running errands, buying his underpants, helping with his wedding arrangements and working for his political and charitable interests.
She has lodged an official complaint alleging that he paid her public money to pursue his private agenda during her working day. She said that she spent most of her time working for his Respect party, for the Viva Palestina charity and doing chores for him.
Mideast Matters
• In their efforts to take over the Yarmouk refugee camp, ISIS and the Nusra Front are borrowing a page from Hamas-style “resistance.” A commander of one of the armed Palestinian groups fighting the Islamists told Foreign Policy:
The Palestinian group’s enemies, evidently, have adopted the same strategies. In a video Daham filmed just days ago, he shows the entrance to a tunnel he says was dug out by the Islamic State and Nusra. Seconds later, a Katyusha 107 mm rocket with more than 100 pounds of explosives wrapped around it was fired from the fifth floor of the neighboring building into the hole, bringing down rubble around it.
“They’ve built tunnels, which they learned from Hamas,” said Daham. “Who taught Hamas and even Hezbollah how to build tunnels back in the day? We did.”
• People are only bothered when things like fertilizer destined for Gaza are held up by Israel.
Fertilizer, also suited for bombs, flows to ISIS territory from Turkey
• Imagine the outrage if Israel did this:
Major hospital in Aleppo shuts because of bombing
Commentary/Analysis
• Rafael Medoff says the Palestinians should learn from Baltimore mom Toya Graham, who became famous for slapping her son after catching him throwing rocks during recent riots. Medoff was reacting to a New York Times report about Israel arresting two Palestinian kids (ages seven and 12) for, uh, throwing stones in eastern Jerusalem.
The contrast between the mother in Baltimore and the relatives in Jerusalem could not be more striking.
The Baltimore Riot Mom saw her son throwing rocks, and she responded by pulling him away from the rioting mob, slapping him, and administering a thorough tongue-lashing. She made it unmistakably clear to her son that his behavior and was immoral and unacceptable, and that she, as his parent, would not tolerate it.
The Jerusalem Riot Relatives saw their grandson and nephew throwing rocks, and they responded by denouncing the authorities for arresting him. The grandfather and uncle did not exhibit an ounce of sympathy for the innocent bus passengers who could have been maimed, or even murdered, by the rocks that their boy threw.
When Palestinian kids throw stones, the New York Times called it a “a rite of passage.”
• Experts at a Shurat HaDin conference on the laws of war discussed how to combat terror groups that use human shields. Unfortunately, the media’s part of the problem.
Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told a legal conference that the Western media have encouraged terrorists to use human shields in war by focusing attention on civilian casualties in such a way that Western military forces were effectively deterred from responding to terrorist attacks. He suggested that legal doctrines might need to be adjusted in order to remove the operational advantage human shields provide terrorists . . .
Later in the day, Prof. Geoffrey Corn of the South Texas College of Law disagreed, saying that the international law was flexible enough as it is currently understood, and that it does not need to be changed. Rather, he said the problem was that the doctrine of proportionality had been distorted in public debate, and had become a way for critics to undermine military tactics. He said that lawyers had “hijacked” the original doctrine, which had been meant to prevent truly “excessive” force.
Retired IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz described to the conference how Hezbollah and Hamas use civilian areas to cover their tracks and what it means for the IDF.
• For more commentary, see:
– Jennifer Rubin: Obama is again driving a wedge between allies
– Elie Barnavi: The UK elections and the Jewish question
– Rob Swift: What a would a new UK prime minister mean for Israel?
– Barcin Yinanc: Will Turkey learn to live with the bitter truth of the Mideast conflict?
– Hussain Abdul-Hussain: The Iran you see is not the Iran you get
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/wl with additions by HonestReporting; Galloway CC BY-ND flickr/KNLphotos2010;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
