Today’s Top Stories
1. The IDF gave the New York Times an exclusive look at what it knows about Hezbollah’s latest human shield deployments. We’re talking about infantry and anti-tank positions, arms depots, rocket launching sites, signs of underground tunnels, and a command post all located in just one village. Now multiply that by many more villages dotting southern Lebanon.
Effectively, the Israelis are warning that in the event of another conflict with Hezbollah, many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed, and that it should not be considered Israel’s fault . . .
Zooming out over a wider section of southern Lebanon, the Israeli military says the number of potential targets for Israel in and around villages runs into the thousands.
Israeli military officials said they were publicizing the Hezbollah buildup to put the problem on the international agenda in case there is another conflict — and to possibly decrease the chances of one breaking out.
2. Syrian rebels claim that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah suffered either a minor heart attack or a stroke, and is currently hospitalized in Beirut. Nobody has confirmed anything so far, but you can imagine the rumors flying around. The Jerusalem Post and YNet distill what the Arab reports are saying.
3. Could Bashar Assad and his inner circle be indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity on the basis of official documents smuggled out of Syria? Investigators say yes.
4. Follow HonestReporting’s Fighting BDS (new on Twitter!) to learn more about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and fight the delegitimization of Israel. The conversation’s at @FightingBDS.
Israel and the Palestinians
• I can understand Israel refusing to cooperate with an International Criminal Court investigation that doesn’t want to legitimize. But I’m scratching my head at ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s comments to AP that the Palestinians aren’t cooperating with the activity they initiated.
Fatou Bensouda said in an interview with The Associated Press that she hasn’t received any information yet from either side regarding last summer’s Gaza war and urged Israel and the Palestinians to provide information to her . . .
Bensouda said she has already received information “from others regarding the preliminary examination,” but refused to elaborate except to say that her office is also collecting information from confidential sources, identified groups and individuals and open sources.
• Human rights under PA and Hamas rule has worsened, according to one Palestinian group’s annual report picked up by AP.
• West Bank electricity grid to be connected to Jordan; the three-year project is expected to cost $100 million.
• Former EU officials are calling for greater pressure on Israel to resume peace talks with the Palestinians. YNet saw a copy of the letter, which also casts doubt the US role as mediator.
Mideast Matters
• Ahead of this week’s Camp David “summit” with jittery Gulf states, President Obama discussed the summit, Iran, and — of course — the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with Asharq al-Awsat.
• The Wall St. Journal (click via Google News) introduces us to Ahmad al-Assaad, who is trying to steer Lebanese children away from Hezbollah’s influence.
Commentary/Analysis
• It’s bad enough that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) co-sponsored a Holocaust Remembrance Day event to attack Israel at the University of Pittsburgh last month. What’s worse is that the administration allowed students to earn credits by participating. Mort Klein and Susan Tuchman called out the university in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review op-ed.
Pitt qualified the event for OCC — Outside the Classroom Curriculum — credit. Students who earn OCC credit get “an edge,” according to Pitt’s website, including such “tangible perks” as the enhancement of their academic records, entry to an “Honorary Society” and eligibility for substantial monetary grants.
How Pitt would permit this event to qualify for OCC credit is truly astonishing. The SJP has a long and well-documented history of demonizing Israel and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state — actions that our own government recognizes as anti-Semitic.
Related reading: Remember, Don’t Repurpose, the Holocaust
• I’m baffled by the British Medical Journal publishing a defense of The Lancet against an open letter signed by nearly 400 physicians and scientists, among them five Nobel laureates. They accused The Lancet of being politicized against Israel, publishing false information, and lacking transparency, among other things.
The defense doesn’t address the substance of the letter’s charges — it became clearer when I saw the BMJ’s footnote disclosing the author’s backgrounds. I added the links:
[Dr. John S. Yudkin] is a member of the steering group of the Lancet Palestine Health Alliance and a signatory of Jews for Justice for Palestinians . . . [Dr Jennifer Leaning] is a collaborator of the Lancet Palestine Health Alliance and was a member of the steering group for the 2009 Lancet series on the health status and health services in the cooupied Palestinian Territory . . . She was a member of the independent fact finding mission into Operation Protective Edge coordinated by Physicians for Human Rights—Israel.
• Question of the day, posed by the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News), in response to the discovery of Syrian chemical weapons, despite a 2013 US-Russia deal that was supposed to get rid of them:
If the world won’t respond to evidence of cheating by a minor state like Syria, why should anyone believe it would act against cheaters in Iran?
Last word for now goes to Michael Kelley:
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen: Boycott? What boycott?
– Philip Gordon: The myth of a “better” Iran deal
– Washington Post (staff-ed): Obama’s lonely Gulf summit
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Alvaro A. Novo with additions by HonestReporting; Nasrallah via YouTube/Sayed Hasan; stethoscope CC BY-SA flickr/Lucas Hayas
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