Today’s Top Stories
1. Haaretz: Prime Minister Netanyahu told the EU’s Federica Mogherini he wants to resume peace talks, with an eye to “reach understandings on the borders of settlement blocs that Israel would annex under any peace agreement.”
An Israeli source briefed on Netanyahu’s meeting with Federica Mogherini last Wednesday said the prime minister explained that in this way, it would be clear what parts of the West Bank Israel could continue building in.
Later in the day, the PLO rejected the prime minister’s proposal, but I’m not convinced this is the end of the story.
2. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, President Obama insisted that the Washington must be able to criticize Israel if the US is to defend it in international forums. The President also attacked Benyamin Netanyahu’s election day comments, and defended his Iranian nuclear diplomacy.
The interview was in advance of Obama’s Jewish Heritage Month speech at Washington’s Adas Israel synagogue (video or transcript).
Obama’s remarks stirred a lot of online discussion. See below for the commentary.
3. The Times of Israel and YNet picked up on Hezbollah showing off one of its tunnels to a Lebanese reporter. The Party of God claims they’re meant for firing rockets, not infiltrating Israel. Mitch Ginsburg‘s not impressed, saying Hezbollah’s trying to distract the Lebanese public from its wholesale murder of Syrians:
This is the context in which one should view a series of recent IDF briefings — to Israeli TV, the New York Times and others — regarding the damage to Lebanon and its citizens if Hezbollah triggers a war. If Hezbollah, with which Israel fought a bitter war in 2006, sparks another conflict, Israel’s air force chief Amir Eshel told Israel’s Channel 10 last month, “Lebanon will go through an experience whose dimensions it cannot imagine.”
4. Why is BDS Afraid of the State Department? Criticizing Israeli policy isn’t anti-Semitic. But calling it a Nazi state is more than just criticism. BDS must grasp the difference.
5. HR Radio: Green Lines, Jewish Hands, Terror Tunnels: Yarden Frankl discusses HonestReporting’s plans to appeal a BBC ruling whitewashing Tim Willcox, a Newsweek error, and why Hezbollah tunnels are in the news. Click below to hear the full interview on Voice of Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel HaYom: Because of the Knesset’s one-seat majority, MKs can’t afford to miss any votes. While “zero-absences” ought to make for good government, it also means MKs are also unable to represent Israel in international forums.
Here is another story. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean convened in Lisbon, Portugal, earlier this month to discuss immigration and refugee issues. When representatives from Arab states raised the Palestinian issue, there was no Israeli delegate to fend off their proposals. As a result, Israel was dealt a blow, and the assembly adopted a resolution that criticized Israel’s human rights record. Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was supposed to be there but he was a no-show (he had to preside over the Knesset vote to expand the number of cabinet ministers). His replacement, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and Kulanu MK Michael Oren, was told he was prohibited from leaving because his presence in Israel was essential.
“Had Israel sent a representative, the resolution could have been torpedoed, or watered down at the very least,” a Foreign Ministry official lamented this week. An internal memo in the ministry said that “the MKs’ absence had the effect of silencing Israel.”
• Israel’s top diplomat, Tzipi Hotovely, instructed envoys to making the case for Israel to emphasize rights to the land, not just security needs. Meanwhile, former ambassador Dore Gold was appointed director general of the foreign ministry.
The Times of Israel took a closer look at what that means for Israeli diplomacy and for Hotovely.
• Oil rich Gulf States aren’t ponying up on their $2 billion pledge to reconstruct. The International Business Times had clearest coverage of figures released by the World Bank. Turkey was one of the countries named and shamed.
• Foreign Affairs takes a closer look at the crisis of Palestinian succession. After Abbas, an abyss.
Abbas has been leading the Palestinian Authority for a decade now, nearly equal in time to Arafat. In this period, Abbas has ensured that no new leaders would come to the fore as realistic successors. This might have made for good politics locally, allowing him to consolidate control over a potentially fractious polity. But as a national strategy, it could be ruinous for Palestinians as a whole. The Palestinian Authority cannot afford a leadership crisis if Abbas were to leave office, it finds itself divided between Gaza and the West Bank, hamstrung by a moribund peace process, and facing growing discontent in the streets and refugee camps.
• Ahead of next year’s Rio games, the International Olympic Committee is making a gesture to Israel and the families of the Munich massacre victims. JNS coverage.
• The problem of UK tax money going to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their family through PA stipends caught the attention of the Daily Express.
• The Washington Post visited Ofra, where Israel Harel is celebrating the settlement’s 40th anniversary.
• What took Turkish investigators so long?
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Israel thanked the US, Britain, and Canada for blocking a controversial UN nuclear disarmament document. Proposed at a Non-Proliferation Treaty conference, the document sought to make the Mideast a nuclear-free zone by setting a deadline for Israel and other states to disarm their atomic stockpiles. Yossi Melman explains why the move gives Israel “five years of grace.”
• According to media reports, the Saudis rejected an Israeli offer to supply the kingdom with Iron Dome technology. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have fired rockets at Saudi border towns. One Saudi child was killed and three other kids were injured in a Friday rocket attack. Times of Israel/AP coverage.
• The Jerusalem Post updates the latest on Russia’s sale of S-300 missiles to Iran.
• The trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian begins today in Tehran — and it’s closed to the public.
Mideast Matters
• Since mid-March, Syrian doctors and civil defense personnel have documented 35 chlorine attacks by the Assad regime. The Guardian writes:
“Most of the targeting is of civilian areas, and most of the injured are women and children,” Tennari said. “It’s almost daily now.”
• An Egyptian journalist took to the streets of Cairo streets dressed as Jew to see what would happen. There were unpleasant moments, but it wasn’t as bad as reporters who recently walked the streets of Paris and Bradford.
• Gaza terrorists share their tunnel expertise with Syrian rebels
• Egypt has destroyed 521 tunnels in the last six months.
• Syria’s state-run satellite TV station went off the air, with Damascus blaming “enemy countries” for interference.
• Meet an Israeli doctor saving Syrian lives and limbs
• Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced to eight months in prison for taking $150,000 bribes from US businessman Morris Talansky. Last year, Olmert was sentenced to six years for corruption in the separate”Holyland affair.”
Question is, Will Olmert serve the full time?
Around the World
• Anti-Semitism prompts Jews of Scotland to leave.
• Are Belgium‘s Jews any safer now?
• Israeli companies account for 10 percent of the world’s cyber technology sales.
Commentary/Analysis
• Reactions to Obama’s interview and speech:
– Bret Stephens: The rational ayatollah hypothesis (click via Google News)
– Eli Lake: Obama cares too much about Israel
– Boaz Bismuth: In Obama’s Middle East there’s only one problem — Netanyahu
– Jonathan Tobin: Iran gives Obama a lesson in negotiating
– Chemi Shalev: I represent American Jewish values better than Netanyahu
– David Bernstein: Obama is nostalgic for “white” Israel
– Omri Ceren: Obama, Israel and “Jewish values”
– Yair Rosenberg: Denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland is anti-Semitic
• Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, addressed (see video or transcript) “the amoral revolution in Western values, and its impact on Israel.” He has some choice words for the media corps, but one snippet doesn’t do justice to his criticisms. Col. Kemp expanded on his views in an Israel HaYom interview.
• Should Israel accept Obama’s Iran payoff? Jonathan Tobin offers four reasons Jerusalem should decline Washington’s 1.9 billion arms sale.
• Illinois congressman Peter Roskam weighs in on Congress fighting the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) in a Wall St. Journal op-ed. Click via Google News.
• I’m also reading:
– David Horovitz: Netanyahu and the boiling frog
– Amos Harel: Israel may soon be faced with post-Assad Syria
– Benjamin Pogrund: Israel has many injustices. But it is not an apartheid state
– Yossi Beilin: Could football precipitate a political tsunami?
– Ted Lapkin: Replacing Israel with one Arab-Jewish state is lunacy (via Google News)
– New York Post (staff-ed): The disgraceful drive to kick Israel out of FIFA
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: Nasrallah’s morons and traitors
– Michael Totten: The Muslim Brotherhood takes off its mask
– Elliott Abrams: Syria’s chemical warfare continues, unpunished
Featured image: CC BY-NC flickr/Smadar Shilo-Marcus with modifications by HonestReporting; Gold CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons/EinGedi2; Hotovely via Wikimedia Commons/Eman; Olmert via YouTube/euronews;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
