Today’s Top Stories
1. Donald Trump’s wife, Melania discussed for the first time the anti-Semitic abuse supporters piled on reporter Julia Ioffe, who wrote a somewhat critical GQ profile about her. Mrs. Trump’s concluding comment isn’t going over well on Jewish social media.
Here’s the key snippet in full, as Mickey Rapkin of Du Jour writes:
I can’t help but wonder what kind of hate speech her supporters might unleash on me for asking a few pointed questions. A GQ reporter who dug into her family’s past—turning up the existence of a secret 50-year-old half-brother in her native Slovenia whom her father has never acknowledged—was subjected to anti-Semitic threats online. Of the GQ article, Melania says: “I have thick skin. It doesn’t bother me if they write about me because I know who I am. But what right does the reporter have to go and dig in court in Slovenia in 1960 about my parents? They’re private citizens. If they go after me, it’s different. But to do that, it’s a little bit nasty, it’s a little bit mean.” So if people put a swastika on my face once this article comes out, will she denounce them?
“I don’t control my fans,” Melania says, “but I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. She provoked them.”
Two weeks ago, in an interview with CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer, Trump refused to condemn the people trolling Ioffe, and said “I don’t have a message to the fans.”
Nobody controls their followers, but leadership is about influencing others, giving direction, and emanating authority. I’ll be more charitable than a lot of tweets I’ve seen today addressing Melania’s blame-the-victim and just say the Trumps’ responses are cowardly.
2. Hezbollah has a new headache: The governor of Lebanon’s central bank said the nation’s banks will have to comply with new US sanctions against the terror group and the people financing it.
Hezbollah’s bank accounts would apparently be suspended, but the Daily Star reports (click via Google News) the group is “positive” to Governor Riad Salameh’s implementation plan. Hmmmmm.
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3. During the Second Intifada, Marwan Barghouti led the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades. He was convicted of five counts of murder (and acquitted of 21 more for lack of sufficient evidence). He’s now serving five life sentences in the HaSharon Prison. Is one man’s terrorist another man’s Nobel laureate?
Belgian parliamentarians have nominated jailed Palestinian Marwan Barghouthi for the Nobel Peace Prize.
— Ruth Marks Eglash (@reglash) May 18, 2016
4. Is Jerusalem In Israel? Why doesn’t the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority consider Jerusalem part of Israel?
5. Watchdog of the Week: Exposing an Anti-Semitic Image: Allison Rokin of Toronto enabled HonestReporting to prompt the removal of an anti-Semitic image from The Daily Beast.
Around the World
• Vandals painted swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti on the doors to a number of dormitories at UK’s Durham University over the weekend.
• The BDS movement is pressuring Die Antwoord, a popular South African rap-rave duo, to cancel a June 8 appearance in Rishon LeZion.
• An inquiry into anti-Semitism at the Oxford University Labour Club has concluded that the group “is not institutionally antisemitic, but faces ‘difficulties.'” According to the Jewish Chronicle, Baroness Janet Royall, who led the probe, made 11 recommendations, and that other issues raised by her findings will be raised in a separate, wider inquiry of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Meanwhile, JTA reporter Cnaan Lipshiz visited Oxford take the pulse of the city’s Jewish community.
• Israeli-born economist Ilan Goldfajn was confirmed as head of Brazil’s Central Bank.
• Guatemalan protesters use anti-Semitic language to blast Israeli-owned power company.
Commentary/Analysis
• Tweet of the day, from Jeffrey Goldberg:
https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/732649823166337024
Runner-up tweets go to Bethany Mandel and Chemi Shalev.
• Worth reading: Micah Lakin Avni denounces Palestinian schools for honoring the terrorist who killed his father, a retired elementary school principal who promoted education as a means for peaceful coexistence. Avni writes in the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News):
As long as Palestinian leaders nurture a culture of hate, encouraging school children to go out and kill, more violence is inevitable. By encouraging hatred, they distance all of us from the love and belief in peaceful coexistence for which my father stood.
• Col. Richard Kemp picked up on a cute cartoon in The Spectator
Please destroy Israel. via @spectator pic.twitter.com/cH77p3raS7
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) May 17, 2016
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yossi Lempkowicz: Is the French peace initiative a modern version of the 1916 Sykes-Picot pact?
– Jennifer Rubin: The ‘peace process’ didn’t fail — the PA did
– Alan Dershowitz: A visit to the old and new hells of Europe provides a reminder of Israel’s importance
– Michael Gizzi: The Presbyterian Church, BDS, and that ‘largely non-violent’ First Intifada
– Ariel Ben Solomon: The Syrian war has exposed Hezbollah to assassinations
– Aaron David Miller: Six stubborn, essential Middle East truths
Featured image: CC BY John Ragai with additions by HonestReporting; Trumps CC BY-NC-ND Automotive Rhythms; Ioffe via Facebook/Julia Ioffe;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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