Today’s Top Stories
1. Mustafa Badreddine, Hezbollah’s highest ranking commander, was killed in a mysterious explosion near Damascus International Airport.
Whodunnit?
Hezbollah blames Islamic State, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights disputes this. The New York Times notes the deafening silence on claims of responsibility while Anshel Pfeffer ranks the possible culprits.
According to Le Figaro’s Georges Malbrunot and translated by Tony Badran (hat tip Israel Matzav), Hezbollah has apparently asked journalists not to say Israel knocked off Badreddine. Hezbollah’s knee-deep in Syria and can’t afford a new confrontation with Israel, you see.
Don’t have verifction, but Malbrunot claims Hezb telling journalists not to say it was Israel who killed Badreddine. https://t.co/nGuq9JEePn
— Tony Badran (@AcrossTheBay) May 14, 2016
See below for more on the fallout.
2. French President Francois Hollande: Paris’s support for a recent UNESCO resolution (the one that completely ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount) stemmed from a “misunderstanding,” and France will not support any similar resolutions in the future.
That’s damage control for the harm that vote caused France’s Mideast peace initiative. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Paris’ support for the UNESCO resolution “casts a shadow” on the French peace plan, which he added, gives the Palestinians an “escape hatch” to avoid direct negotiations. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault is visiting Israel to shore up support for the initiative.
I'm curious about "misunderstanding" that led @France_Unesco 2 vote for J'lsm resolution. What exactly didnt u understand when u voted yes?
— Raphael Ahren (@RaphaelAhren) May 15, 2016
3. Hamas denied weekend reports that Islamic State operatives entered Gaza through the Sinai tunnels for military training.
4. UNICEF and AFP: Israel the “Child Killer: A one-sided wire story covers a politicized UNICEF report portraying Israel as child-killers.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• Acting on an intelligence tip, Israeli police arrested on Saturday a Palestinian on his way to carry out a terror attack. The suspect had in his possession an Israeli police uniform.
• Study: 1 in 6 Israeli academics hide their national identity due to fear of BDS.
• In recent days, Bill Clinton and Martin Indyk have been confronted about America’s role in the Mideast peace process.
• Beersheva’s transforming into a high-tech hub, as entrepreneurs, academia and the army settle in. Washington Post articles one and two look at what’s happening and why it’s significant.
Different sectors of society — that in the United States do not have a tradition of collaborating — appear willing in Israel to work closely together under a strong centralized authority.
“You will not find it in the United States,” said Eviatar Matania, the head of the National Cyber Bureau. “First, we have more enemies than others. We understand that the cyberthreat is here and now. Second, a lot of Israel’s high-tech and innovation culture is in cyber. This is where we can gain an advantage over other countries in defending ourselves. And thus, we see cyber not just as a threat to mitigate, but also as one of our economic engines.”
• The southern Gaza Strip’s without electricity as the last functioning power line with Egypt was disconnected “after reported damage.” According to Maan News, the areas of Khan Younis and Rafah are in a “full electric blackout.”
Mideast Matters
• For a better sense of the kind of person Mustafa Badreddine was, see profiles in the New Yorker, Daily Telegraph, and Alex Rowell‘s 2015 piece on of the “pyromaniac playboy leading Hezbollah’s fight in Syria.” He helped organize the 1983 bombings of the US Marines barracks in Beirut as well as the bombings of the US and French embassies in Kuwait that same year.
• Badreddine was the lead suspect in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (a massive car bomb which also killed 21 bystanders and injured around 220 people). What does Badreddine’s death mean for the UN’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the possibility of justice for the victims?
New Iran? FM @jZarif sent#Hezbollah condolences re #badreddine, who
aided '83 @USMC barracks & '05 Hariri bombings. pic.twitter.com/dOlCC48M9E— Dr. Dore Gold (@DrDoreGold) May 15, 2016
• Tehran’s anti-Israel cartoon contest is underway.
• Former Syrian general calls for peace with Israel: Brigadier General Nabil al-Dandel, who defected in 2012, urges Israel to open a dialogue with the Syrian people and support the moderate opposition. Details at YNet.
• Worth reading: Israeli media profiled a Lebanese Shiite Muslim who spied on Hezbollah for Israel at great risk to his own life. Ibrahim Yassin has since converted to Judaism and lives in Safed as Rabbi Avraham Sinai.
• The Obama administration’s sending mixed messages on Iran, a ex-sanctions officer charges. The JTA picked up on the eyebrow-raising op-ed by Stuart Levey, who was tasked with enforcing banking sanctions on Iran during the George Bush Jr. presidency. He’s now chief legal officer the UK-based HSBC Holdings.
You can read Levey’s argument in the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News).
Around the World
• Daily Mail: UK Jews are campaigning to cut British aid money to the PA unless it puts an end to salaries and stipends to Palestinian terrorists and their families.
• The BBC will finally come under the purview of Ofcom, Britain’s media regulatory body. More at Sky News and the Press Gazette. Say goodbye to the BBC Trust and its unfit-for-service Editorial Complaints Unit.
The move means Ofcom, rather than the BBC Trust, will have responsibility for adjudicating on serious complaints and imposing sanctions where necessary.
Good that #Ofcom will provide governance of #BBC programme output as they do for other broadcasters. BBC cannot be its own judge and jury.
— Michael Fabricant ?? (@Mike_Fabricant) May 12, 2016
• French Jews oppose Cannes screening of film sympathetic to Munich Olympics terrorists.
• Newcastle University students voted to cut ties with the National Union of Students, while students at Exeter U. voted not to.
• David Samuels, who authored last week’s controversial profile of Ben Rhodes and the White House’s selling of the Iran deal, responded to his critics.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Jeffrey Salkin on the Jewish community tolerating anti-Israel views and the Jewish students at Brown U. and the Rhode Island School of Design holding a joint “Nakba” event to mark Israel’s Independence Day:
I cannot think of another case of a faction within a particular ethnic or interest group demanding that the group provide them with a forum for taking positions that are clearly against the group’s interests.
You don’t, for example, see black students’ groups having programs that question, say, affirmative action, or LGBT groups having programs on reparative therapy.
But for the Jews, as in so many other things, it is different . . .
But, when you start using words like “nakba,” it means this: You have chosen to accept the Palestinian narrative about 1948, in which the creation of Israel is seen as a disaster . . .
Which begs the question: If the creation of Israel was a nakba, then there is nothing that Israel can do to undo it — except to willfully disappear.
• Quote of the day: David Uberti on Facebook’s trending news scandal:
. . . its business imperative is to maximize engagement, not objectivity.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Gary Rosenblatt: Laying blame for the Israel problem
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Bogged down in the Syrian mud
– Roi Kas: Hezbollah in distress as scores are settled
– Reuters: For Iran and Hezbollah, a costly week in Syria
– Jonathan Tobin: The French will make things worse
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian leaders and child sacrifice
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Marwan Barghouti is not the answer
– Leon Jamaine Mithi: Calling Israel an apartheid state insults black South Africans
– Benjamin Weinthal, Asaf Romirowsky: How New York can help stop Europe’s rampaging Israel boycotters
– Verda Ozer: Why are Turkey and Israel reconciling now?
– Jessica Satin: Will Germans learn from Israel how to live under the threat of terror?
– Michael Totten: Washington’s idiotic echo chamber
– Stuart Levey: Kerry’s peculiar message about Iran for European banks (via Google News)
– Natan Sharansky: Why political prisoners matter
Featured image: CC BY-NC Gregor Gruber with additions by HonestReporting;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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