Today’s Top Stories
1. Reuters: Tehran is already anticipating oil sales once sanctions are lifted. What will Iran’s re-emergence in the world market mean for OPEC and oil prices?
2. Qatar arrested a BBC News crew investigating the treatment of migrant laborers in Qatar building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup. Odder still, the four-man team led by correspondent Mark Lobel was invited by the Qatari prime minister’s office for an official tour. The group was released after two days. FIFA’s investigating too.
3. Despite Israel’s best efforts to resolve the Bedouin issue, the Associated Press, egged on by Haaretz, is still determined to treat this as a simplistic story of discrimination. Ben-Dror Yemini disagrees.
4. CNN Journalism Goes to the Dogs: Un-named Palestinian sources and unverified reports make for messy journalism.
5. Media, Not Pope, Dub Abbas an “Angel of Peace”: No absolution for reporters violating one of journalism’s cardinal rules.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Times of Israel takes the pulse of Bethlehem. With unemployment rampant, will the city become a tinderbox of intifada? Or will people just up and leave for opportunities elsewhere?
• Jerusalem Post: Israel intercepted 40 diving suits that were being smuggled into Gaza.
Around the World
• An Arab separatist group in Iran’s Ahvaz region attacked a government building, either killing or injuring two guards. Ahvaz, located in western Iran, is an ethnically Arab-populated area. The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) claimed responsibility. Details and background at NOW Lebanon.
• Is Hezbollah already looking to profit off Syria’s post-civil war reconstruction? That seems the only plausible explanation for a controversial $200 million cement factory being built in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border. Opponents say health and environmental issues are being ignored.
• Reversing herself in the face of criticism, the mayor of the Greek town of Kavala said a Holocaust memorial will be dedicated soon.” The Greek port city was under pro-Nazi Bulgarian occupation when its 1,800 Jews were deported to the Treblinka concentration camp in March, 1943.
Commentary/Analysis
• Could an Israeli-Saudi rapprochement mitigate, or even spoil, the US-Iranian detente? Writing at Foreign Affairs, Gabriel Scheinmann looks at how Anwar Sadat broke Egypt out of the Soviet orbit and made peace with Israel, drawing his own conclusions for today.
• It’s time to give Israel the means to take out Iranian nukes, such as bunker buster bombs, argue two US Congressmen in a New York Post op-ed.
The transfer of [Massive Ordnance Penetrators] would not by itself resolve the Iranian nuclear question. Nor would it lessen the need for any deal to ensure that Iran has no technical path to a nuclear weapon. But it would enable the United States to negotiate from a position of strength — and remain in a position of strength long after the negotiations.
• Robert Fisk chews over a Canadian initiative to ban BDS under existing hate laws.
• I’m also reading:
– Karni Eldad: Jerusalem: Not as united as we wanted, but undivisible
– Yossi Beilin: Obama reverts to failed ideas to solve Mideast conflict
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: Should Egypt execute Mursi and Brotherhood elite?
Featured image: CC BY-SA flickr/Tom Woodward with additions by HonestReporting; angel CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Jared Rodriguez/Truthout with modifications by HonestReporting; Begin/Sadat via Israel GPO/Ya’acov Sa’ar
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