Today’s Top Stories
1. Efforts to reform the UN Human Rights Council are going nowhere and a US withdrawal is seen as “not a question of if but of when,” Reuters reports. The UNHRC’s next session opens in Geneva on Monday — tomorrow.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, publicly told the Council a year ago that Washington might leave the body unless a “chronic anti-Israel bias” were removed.
The forum, set up in 2006, has a permanent standing agenda item on suspected violations committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, which Washington wants removed.
2. The UN is expected to issue a new report bashing Israeli settlements next week, Israel HaYom reports:
The report is an extension of Resolution 2334 and was produced due to pressure on Guterres applied by Sweden and France . . .
According to the resolution, every three months the secretary-general must provide the Security Council with a report on its implementation. Thus far, the secretary-general hasn’t issued a written report, sufficing instead with an oral report from his Middle East envoy, Nickolay Mladenov. In recent weeks, however, the French and Swedes have pushed behind the scenes for Guterres to produce a written report, exploiting the mass protests on the Gaza border and condemnations of Israel to enlist support from 10 Security Council member-states – the number obligating the secretary general to issue a written report.
3. Qatar’s buckling efforts to influence American Jews may have collapsed for good. Nick Muzin, a political strategist and CEO of Stonington Strategies tweeted that his lobbying firm is “no longer representing the State of Qatar.” The backstory described by Tablet‘s includes a complicated lawsuit over hacked emails that “threatens to reveal the architecture of Qatar’s influence operation in the United States—as well as how American Jews factored into it.”
In each instance, pro-Qatar forces, including the ones most eager to influence US Jews, are alleged to have skirted the boundaries of normative public advocacy.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Sunday morning the IDF launched an airstrike on the car of the leader of the Gaza balloon and kite launches. The Air Force also struck two Hamas observation posts in retaliation for balloons carrying rigged explosives. The kites and balloons sparked 20 fires in Israeli areas near the Strip. And just as this roundup was published, there were reports of another air strike on Gazans launching flaming balloons this afternoon.
A booby-trapped balloon was also flown into Israeli territory, landing on a highway in the Sha’ar Hanegev region. Police sappers were called to the scene and destroyed the balloon and the explosive device attached to it in a controlled explosion, police said.
Police sappers destroyed a booby-trapped balloon that had been launched from Gaza and landed on a highway in southern Israel. An explosive device was attached by a string to the ballon.
"I ❤️ you" was written on the balloon because of course it was.
?: Israel Police pic.twitter.com/UWrt0AYKMV
— Judah Ari Gross (@JudahAriGross) June 15, 2018
• The White House’s Mideast peace plan is “essentially complete,” but the Trump administration is stymied on timing its release. Washington’s worry? A peace plan that’s dead on arrival, the Jerusalem Post reports. Will the White House wait for the PA to resume contact with the US? To what extent does political posturing for US elections in 2020 play a part? And what happens to the peace plan if Israel heads to early elections?
• Hilltop Youth clashed with Israeli police at the settlement outpost of West Kfar Tapuach, near Nablus, today. Bulldozers are expected this week to raze 13 illegal structures which a court ruled were illegally built on privately owned Palestinian land.
• According to Israeli media reports, “A classified document written and distributed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry after the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore reportedly raises skepticism about the result of the talks and concern over several concessions made by the US president.”
• Israel holds Turkish woman on suspicion of security offences.
• This world deserves a better class of Western imperial plots.
Window into Israel
• Early elections ‘back on the table’ as United Torah Judaism party’s rabbis issue ultimatum on army enlistment law. Or is a compromise on the horizon? More on the story at Ynet.
• Culture and Sport Minister wants a say in how Eurovision portrays Israel because the government funds the Kan public broadcaster, which is producing next year’s competition. The Jerusalem Post explains:
A report on Channel 2 News stated that Regev had asked for government approval of and involvement in the video clips played between songs at next year’s contest. The report added that the culture minister was unhappy with this year’s Kan representative, Lucy Ayoub, speaking Arabic during the live broadcast . . .
The rules of the competition clearly state that political figures and considerations may not play any role in the competition.
• A Knesset committee advanced controversial legislation that would outlaw the filming of IDF soldiers. But because of constitutional issues raised by the Attorney General, the so-called “Elor Azaria bill” will need significant revisions before the Knesset plenum votes on it. Take your pick of Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel or Haaretz coverage.
A senior member of the coalition told Haaretz that an agreement had been reached with Ilatov whereby the proposed law will call for a ban on interfering with Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the line of duty, but there will not be a total prohibition on filming and documenting such activities.
• It’s Father’s Day. It’s Israel, for better or for worse. ‘Nuff said . . .
Israel tries to ban sperm mega-donor from having any more kids.
Around the World
• UK Labour in fresh antisemitism row (again?) over the appointment of Gordon Nardell QC as the party’s in-house legal advisor.
The Labour Against Anti-Semitism (LAAS) campaign group has alleged Mr Nardell described anti-Semitism claims against former London mayor Ken Livingstone as “anti-Labour nonsense” . . .
LAAS also alleged Mr Nardell voiced support for Jackie Walker, who was suspended by Labour over allegedly anti-Semitic comments in 2016, and “liked” a Facebook post claiming the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), which is affiliated to the party, was working to “prevent Jewish members and others criticising Israeli policies”.
It is understood that Mr Nardell will not be involved in any individual cases but as a specialist human rights barrister will give wide-ranging in-house legal advice in a role recommended by Baroness Chakrabarti in her investigation into anti-Semitism.
This week, @UKLabour announced that Gordon Nardell QC got the job. That he is now the internal arbiter of @uklabour antisemitism cases means I have no faith in the objectivity of the process.
The NEC should urgently review his appointment.
— Luciana Berger (@lucianaberger) June 15, 2018
• The northern Spanish state of Navarre voted to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The JTA explains:
The motion passed on May 21 calls on the central government to “support any initiative promoted by the international BDS campaign.” It also calls on Spain to “suspend its ties with Israel “until that country ceases its policy of criminal repression of the Palestinian population.” . . .
The motion went on to condemn Israel for “murdering” dozens of Palestinians in May
Related reading: BDS: The Bane in Spain.
• Is Germany’s Bank for Social Economy violating its own code of ethics by enabling BDS?
• Is Turkey safe for Israelis and Jews?
Commentary
• While visiting Israel, Pakistani journalist Ibrahim Rashid (via Point of No Return) had a chance encounter with a bus driver who was also from Pakistan. It was a stunning moment for Rashid who had never imagined there could be Pakistani Jews:
He spoke about growing up in Karachi – the city my family is from – and fearing for his life during his stay. He was harassed in the street, his synagogue was targeted and along with the rest of Karachi’s Jews, he had to flee to the only country that would take him, Israel.
As we parted ways and I made my way for the Wall, he was all I could think about. We come from the same land, speak the same language, and he could even pass for one of my relatives but because of his religion, our country failed him and now he’s in Israel, the only place where he feels safe . . .
As Pakistanis, we are not party to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and thus, must not confine ourselves to only one narrative of history. The experience of persecution and antisemitism that Jews face in Muslim-majority countries explains part of why this conflict has become so intractable.
We can justifiably show solidarity with the Palestinians, as I do, but unless we, and other Muslim majority countries, reconcile our disgraceful history with the Jews, the prospects for coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, let alone Jews within our own borders, will remain ever more remote.
“Why haven’t you gone back to Pakistan?” “Because I can’t – it’s not safe for me.”
@Ibrahim_Rashid1 shares his experience of meeting a Pakistan-Jew living in Israel.https://t.co/A23kgJsfHG
— Daily Times (@dailytimespak) June 5, 2018
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Herb Keinon: Disappointment at the UN, but also a few pleasant surprises
– Ariel Kahana: ?’BDS does Palestinians more harm than good’?
– David Horovitz: Those who battle BDS on Israel’s behalf must stay clean
– Dr. Reuven Berko: The threat of family reunification
– Pinhas Inbari: Erdogan’s Turkey intensifies involvement in Gaza and Jerusalem
– Yaniv Kubovich: Iran’s fighting force in Gaza, calling and firing the shots: This is Islamic Jihad in Palestine
– Nadav Shragai: The Western Wall: Holy only to Jews
– Emanuele Ottolenghi: Lebanon is protecting Hezbollah’s cocaine trade in Latin America
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Ban Ki-moon’s former speechwriter, Marc Seddon.
Featured image: CC BY-ND cosmo_71; UN Human Rights Council CC BY-NC-ND UN Geneva; Pamplona via YouTube/Ivano02; Pakistan CC0 Pixabay;
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