Today’s Top Stories
1. Bashar Assad reportedly placed his intelligence chief under house arrest on suspicion he was planning a coup, according to the Daily Telegraph. As battlefield losses pile up, Assad’s inner circle is reportedly divided by Iran’s creeping takeover of the battles.
Was spy chief Ali Mamlouk looking to bring back Bashar Assad’s exiled uncle, Rifaat Assad?
2. Gulf state monarchs are snubbing President Obama’s upcoming Camp David summit. The president is expected to offer the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) arms sales and a defense agreement. Four of the GCC states, including Saudi Arabia, are sending lower-ranking representatives. More at the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News) and CBS News.
Senior Arab officials involved in organizing the meeting said not enough progress had been made in narrowing differences with Washington on issues like Iran and Syria to make the Saudi ruler’s trip worth it.
3. A new flotilla hoping to break the Gaza blockade is underway as a trawler, “Marianne of Gothenburg,” left Sweden. Two other vessels will meet up with the Marianne en route. Israel has blockaded Gaza since Hamas took over the strip in 2006. Egypt has also tightened its blockade of Gaza while fighting jihadists in Sinai. Times of Israel coverage.
4. Misleading and Accusatory Headline in The Times: Did the evil Israeli regime silence a dissident or persecute human rights activists?
Israel and the Mideast
• A 19 year-old Israeli was stabbed near a checkpoint by Maale Adumim. The victim, was moderately injured. That’s all YNet reports for now.
• Iran’s funneling money to the West Bank to buy influence with the PA.
The only thing that is clear is that Tehran, through its renewed support for Hamas and its coordination with the PA to fund payments to the families of “martyrs” in the West Bank, is seeking a key position of influence in the Palestinian territories. So far, in the West Bank at least, the sums involved have been relatively modest, but as Iran is itself infused with tens of billions of dollars in imminent sanctions relief, there is no telling what the scale of its future role may be.
• Israel’s purchasing four German-made Saar class missile boats to protect offshore gas sites. According to the Times of Israel, they’ll be delivered over the next five years.
• Reuters: Weapons inspectors found undeclared sarin and VX traces in Syria.
• Saudi King Salman is pursuing a more active foreign policy to confront rising rivalries with both Iran and ISIS. According to the New York Times, this is fueled by frustration with the US and risks escalating tensions with Tehran.
• JTA: Two Spanish language news networks (the Iranian-run HispanTV and Venezuela’s national public TV channel, Telesur) claim that Israel’s humanitarian aid mission to Nepal was a cover for baby trafficking.
Commentary/Analysis
• Palestinians recently marked the 10th anniversary of the Mahmoud Abbas presidency that expired six years ago. Sean Savage examines the “political and economic muck” Abbas has left the Palestinians mired in.
• Is the Camp David summit a marketing tool for the Iran deal?
• A staff-ed in the New York Daily News blasts the BDS movement and its sore reaction to a defeat at New York City’s Park Slope Food Coop.
The BDS brigades seek to delegitimize Israel as punishment for the sin of existing.
• What else I’m reading today . . .
– Jonathan Marks: Anti-Israel course is a campus farce
– Danny Rubinstein: The Salafist “nuisance” in Gaza
– Doyle McManus: What the Persian Gulf states want: Iran kept at bay
– Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (staff-ed): UN Watch: Predictable anti-Israel bias
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Stefan Georgi via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; missile boats CC BY-NC flickr/Israel Defense Forces;
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