Today’s Top Stories
1. President Donald Trump is due to meet with North Korean President Kim Jong Un in Singapore today. The leaders will discuss denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and Israel is carefully watching developments that could set a precedent for Iran. For liveblogging, see Singapore’s Straits Times and Reuters,
While the Trump-Kim summit is expected to be dominated by smiles and handshakes, what turned out to be a fake Twitter account ostensibly belonging to North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho seemed to pour cold water on Israel.
Ron Ben-Yishai and Anshel Pfeffer weighed in on the summit’s Israel angles while AP noted how its playing in Iran. Tweet of the day goes to Raphael Ahren.
>> Imagine Trump came back with some deal, and UK, France and others applauded it, and Japan & South Korea opposed it.
That’s what happened with the Iran deal. This deal was applauded by many who are not in the missile range of Iran. But Israel and the Arab states opposed it.
— Raphael Ahren (@RaphaelAhren) June 10, 2018
2. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz went to the Western Wall yesterday in an unscheduled “private visit.” The European Union consider the holy site occupied. More on Kurz’s itinerary at the Jerusalem Post and i24 News.
Austria's Sebastian Kurz visits Jerusalem's Western Wall, Holocaust museum https://t.co/yXNPfuMO9j pic.twitter.com/h8YFG1pPaS
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) June 10, 2018
3. Looks like the Israeli government is dropping its insistence that the Eurovision song competition will be held in Jerusalem. According to Israeli media reports, the government will not intervene in choosing the location. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Eilat are seeking to host the contest. To avoid politicizing the event, an inter-ministerial conference call decided to let the Kan public broadcaster choose the venue.
The European Broadcasting Union, charged with producing the event together with local member Kan, has said it will not object to Jerusalem being the chosen venue, so long as a proper tender has taken place, Channel 20 reported.
Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev — who has insisted that Israel host the Eurovision in Jerusalem or not at all — was conspicuously not involved (frozen out?) in that conference call.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• Ynet introduces us to the Firefly, the new IDF drone designed to attack flaming kites — and more.
• Some Israeli children found a Palestinian terror kite rigged with an unspecified “harmful device” in the Sdot Negev area near the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Sappers neutralized the device with a robot; nobody was injured.
• The Media Line takes a closer look at the terror kite threat and how Israel’s dealing with it.
• A bill fighting against PA terror stipends passed one of its legislative hurdles, getting the approval of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The legislation would require the government to deduct the amount of money the PA spends on terror stipends from taxes and tariffs it collects on the PA’s behalf. The Jerusalem Post explains:
The PA paid terrorists over a billion shekels ($347 million) in 2017, and upped the amount to over NIS 1.4 billion ($403 million) in its 2018 budget, according to a Defense Ministry report based on the PA’s budget . . .
The amount deducted will be invested in a fund to pay damages to victims of terror, among other areas.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat responded to US envoy Jason Greenblatt’s blistering criticism and call for his ouster. (Greenblatt was responding to Erekat’s previous denunciation of the US and the Trump administration.)
• An 18-year-old Israel girl is in serious condition after she was stabbed by a Palestinian in Afula this afternoon. The suspect, a 30something year-old man from Jenin was apprehended with a knife in his possession. Police are investigating whether it was a terror or criminal attack.
• Let’s see: Iran has previously test fired missiles with the words “Israel must be wiped out,” and created a doomsday clock counting down Israel’s destruction to 2040. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a a malignant cancerous tumor” that “has to be removed and eradicated.” So with a history like that, what exactly does the ayatollah or AP think needs clarifying?
Window into Israel
• The yeshiva army deferments issue is back in the news as the United Torah Judaism party put together draft legislation and set a June 22 deadline.
Giving his coalition partners an ultimatum, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party said last week that if the proposal is not passed into law by then, when the Knesset summer recess begins, the party will leave the government, likely spelling its untimely end . . .
[Deputy Health Minister Yaakov] Litzman’s ultimatum comes ahead of a September deadline set by the High Court of Justice for the Knesset to re-legislate a previous exemption that the court disqualified.
Around the World
• Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates pledged a $2.5 billion to bail out for Jordan. AP reports that it is hoped the assistance “will help Jordan come up with a new, more-palatable austerity plan to satisfy international lenders and its public.”
• Israel ‘should be wiped off map’, says Al Quds Day speaker as Hezbollah flags fly in London.
Hezbollah flags once again flown at #Quds day 2018, despite its military wing being a proscribed organisation pic.twitter.com/jWkCrXZ4sJ
— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) June 10, 2018
• An elite New York private school is investigating a teacher over his “diatribe” to students about Israel after the Gaza clashes.
Commentary
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yoav Limor: Hamas naval tunnel and proof of Israel’s intelligence reach
– Avi Issacharoff: Gaza’s financial crisis is sending Hamas back into the arms of Iran
– Alex Fishman: With no more tricks up its sleeves, Hamas has become more dangerous
– Moshe Arens: How to solve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
– MK Avi Dichter: PA terror stipends: Stop the absurdity
– Gadi Taub: Why Western ‘liberals’ so easily buy into Hamas’ antisemitic blood libel
– Daniel Zimet: The feeble fight against BDS
Featured image: CC BY Jon S;
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