Today’s Top Stories
1. Russia lifted a ban on selling Iran an advanced S-300 air-defense missile system as part of a larger oil-for-goods deal. Israeli officials told the Times of Israel that if the sale goes ahead, it’ll change the Mideast balance of power. More at Reuters.
Israeli officials said supply of the system to Iran could prevent any military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Channel 2 news reported.
2. The Stanford Review is looking into a case of anti-Semitism remarkably similar to what happened at UCLA earlier this year. Molly Horwitz, who is running for a seat on the student senate, sought the endorsement of various student groups. What happened when she met with the Students of Color Coalition?
Accounts of what transpired during the interview vary and, without any recording of the interview, no single version can be verified.
Ms. Horwitz told The Stanford Review that one of SOCC’s leaders asked her, “Given your strong Jewish identity, how would you vote on divestment?” In February, the Undergraduate Senate approved a controversial resolution calling on Stanford to divest from companies aiding Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank. Ms. Horwitz explained how she asked for clarification, and the SOCC member subsequently alluded to Ms. Horwitz’s application and asked how her strong Jewish identity would affect her decision in the Senate . . . .
While SOCC has every right to select candidates it believes will advocate for its agenda, it does not have license to judge candidates purely on the basis of their religious beliefs. Perhaps more importantly, the question reveals an assumption that a student’s Jewish identity inherently compromises his or her ability to serve effectively on the senate. Religious discrimination, like discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality, is banned by Stanford’s Acts of Intolerance Protocol.
See HonestReporting’s response: Echoes of UCLA Discrimination Alleged at Stanford: Is the divestment debate leading to outright discrimination against Jews?
3. Is the promise of 72 virgins passe? Iran is building a fleet of suicide kamikaze drones. The Washington Times picked up on a publication by the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office (pdf format, scroll down to page 9). The FMSO adds that Tehran could create problems for Israel by exporting the technology to Hezbollah.
While it is easy to dismiss the idea of a suicide drone as more symbolic than real in an age of cruise missiles and precise Predators, utilizing suicide drones is an asymmetric strategy which both allows Iran to compete on an uneven playing field and poses a risk by allowing operators to pick and choose targets of opportunity over a drone’s multi-hour flight duration.
4. Book a Speaker from HR in Your City: Gary Kenzer, HR’s USA director, is pleased to announce his spring and early summer travel schedule. Find out where Gary will be, and learn how you can book him for a speaking engagement in your community.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• The Jerusalem Post and YNet made my antennae twitch. The Israeli opposition is demanding the US commit in advance to support an Israeli strike on Iran.
• Who to believe? Khamenei says the US fact sheet on the nuclear understandings “was wrong on most of the issues.”
• A poll conducted by NBC News found that most Americans don’t trust Iran to abide by an agreement restricting its nuclear program. Slightly more than half the respondents also felt that the Islamic Republic’s atomic program represents a major threat to the US.
• The Australian discussed Iran with former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Gazans report a weapons shortage, and they’re blaming Egypt. Khaled Abu Toameh explains what this means for Israel:
It is hard to see how Hamas will rush into another military confrontation with Israel — where Palestinians would once again pay a heavy price — at a time when Sisi’s army is working around the clock to destroy smuggling tunnels, and the prices of rifles and bullets in the Gaza Strip are skyrocketing.
By the way, Egypt announced that anyone caught digging or using a cross-border tunnel now faces life in jail. Reuters coverage. Might this have anything to do with 14 Egyptians killed in Sinai terror attacks over the weekend?
• A mere quarter of the $3.5 billion pledged to rebuild Gaza has been delivered. The Jerusalem Post picked up on a report by The Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) explaining why:
Yet, some international donors have been hesitant to disburse their reconstruction pledges due to the tense relationship between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who have bickered over control of Gaza’s border crossings. The plethora of other crises in the region, which also require donor attention, has further stalled the delivery of aid, al-Jazeera adds.
AIDA also called on Israel to end its Gaza blockade.
• AP picked up on a new Human Rights Watch report accusing Israeli settlements of exploiting cheap Palestinian child labor for farm work in dangerous working conditions.
The head of the Jordan Valley regional council, David Elhayani denied any of the farms employ minors, telling Israeli media that:
A) The agricultural work is too complicated for children.
B) Farmers caught hiring minors risk losing their export license.
C) A recent survey found that Palestinians working in Israel and in settlements are paid double or even triple what they would earn in the PA or Gaza.
• Kanye West can’t visit Israel without proposing his own Mideast peace plan. Never let me down . . .
Around the World
• Is Iran trying to send surface-to-air missiles and other game-changer weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels? The US Navy has already stopped and searched one suspected vessel. The Wall St. Journal looks at American efforts to block Iranian arms from reaching Yemen.
• Yemeni militiamen claim capture of two Iranian military officers
• Reuters: Islamists arrested in Spain eyed attacks on Jewish targets.
• Hezbollah defendants at large, but journalists in the dock at UN tribunal investigating the Rafik Hariri assassination. The two are charged with contempt of court and could face prison time, reports The Guardian.
Commentary/Analysis
• Mehdi Hasan weighs in on the world’s reaction to the Yarmouk refugee camp.
Those who try to use the tragedy of Yarmouk to excuse or downplay Israel’s 48-year occupation of Palestine should be ashamed of themselves. But what of the rest of us? Can we afford to stay in our deep slumber, occasionally awakening to lavishly condemn only Israel? Let’s be honest: how different, how vocal and passionate, would our reaction be if the people besieging Yarmouk were wearing the uniforms of the IDF?
Our selective outrage is morally unsustainable. Many of us who have raised our voices in support of the Palestinian cause have inexcusably turned a blind eye to the fact that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by fellow Arabs in recent decades: by the Jordanian military in the Black September conflicts of the early 1970s; by Lebanese militias in the civil war of the mid-1980s; by Kuwaiti vigilantes after the first Gulf war, in the early 1990s. Egypt, the so-called “heart of the Arab world”, has colluded with Israel in the latter’s eight-year blockade of Gaza.
• Is Zionism racism? asks Anne Roiphe.
• More commentary/analysis on the Iranian nuclear understanding:
– David Brooks: Where’s the evidence that Iran wants to change?
– Jackson Diehl: Obama rolls the dice on Iran
– Eli Lake: Iran’s supreme leader gets to no
– Smadar Perry: Why Khamenei prefers sanctions over an agreement
Featured image: CC BY Hendrik Wieduwilt via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; drone via YouTube/epsil2; Cordoba CC BY-NC flickr/Sean Wallis;
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