Today’s Top Stories
1. Former Israeli cabinet minister Gonen Segev was arrested and charged with spying for Iran. Take your pick of Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Ynet or Times of Israel coverage. The latter explains:
The Shin Bet said Segev met with his Iranian handlers in hotels and safe houses around the world and used a special device to send them messages in secret.
He was accused of making contact with Israeli figures in security, defense and diplomacy order to mine them for information to send to Iran. According to the Shin Bet, he tried to make direct connections between his Israeli contacts and Iranian handlers, presenting the spies as businesspeople.
So who exactly is Gonen Segev? He’s a 62-year-old pediatrician who first became a Knesset member in 1992 with the short-lived secular right-wing Tsomet party. By 1995, Segev became minister of energy and infrastructure in Yitzhak Rabin’s government. Segev’s political career ended in 1996 in the musical chairs game of coalition politics when a breakaway faction he was a member of basically disappeared.
Since then, he has served time for electronic commercial fraud, passport forgery and smuggling 30,000 ecstasy pills he claimed he thought were M&Ms. He was practicing medicine in Nigeria where he made his first contact with Iranian agents. Haaretz has a fuller background.
2. A mysterious air strike that is said to have killed 50 or more pro-Assad fighters was carried out by Israel, an anonymous US official told CNN. I’m not clear on the specifics, but most of the fighters killed were apparently foreigners. The attack took place near the Syrian town of Abu Kamal, located near the Syria-Iraq border. Israeli officials haven’t commented, but an attack would fit with Israel’s opposition to Iran’s efforts to create a land bridge across Iraq to Syria and the Mediterranean.
US officials have said that many pro-regime militias that are also aligned with Iran operate in the border area between Syria and Iraq.
The area is some distance from Israel and Israeli jets would have had to overcome significant logistical hurdles to strike that area.
3. The UN Human Rights Council may update its blacklist of companies doing business in Israeli settlements. The US has previously threatened to quit the UNHRC if the list is published.
On Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said his office would “continue its work on the database of business enterprises engaged in specific activities related to Israeli settlements.” He added that there could be “an update possibly before September.”
4. The Independent Distorts Amnesty Report on African Migrants: The Independent cherry picks Amnesty International’s worst accusations against Israel while omitting the NGO’s discussion of mitigating issues.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• Turns out the Palestinian killed trying to infiltrate the Israeli border from Gaza wasn’t killed by a “work accident.” Ynet reports “the military has studded the security fence with explosive booby traps” designed to deter infiltrators.
• Here‘s what the Palestinians, uh, conceived of . . .
You know where this is going:
1) Palestinians use flying condoms to set fires in Israel,
2) Israel bans import of condoms to Gaza,
3) Gaza suffers a contraception shortage…. https://t.co/tRxTrMMgeU— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) June 18, 2018
• CNN takes a closer look at the terror kite threat.
• In an unannounced visit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman.
• Following international pressure, Netanyahu postponed the demolition of illegal Palestinian homes near Hebron.
The demolition of illegal Palestinian homes in Khirbet Susya is seen as one of the symbols of the Palestinian battle in the West Bank, and Israel has been under heavy international pressure—mainly in recent weeks—to prevent the evacuation which would have received wide international coverage.
The demolition may have also been postponed due to the upcoming visit of US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, and his special advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, this weekend.
• The New Yorker reveals that President Donald Trump signed a secret letter promising not to pressure Israel on it’s nuclear program in exchange for Jerusalem continuing its policy of “ambiguity.” According to the report, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama also signed similar letters.
• Israelis ponder the French meaning of “ally.”
• Arab Knesset member attends event organized by terror groups in eastern Jerusalem. Police had banned the conference, which was organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). More at Ynet.
• The US Senate approved $500m for Israel’s missile defense program. Globes points out, “This is the first time that military aid to Israel has been determined under the memorandum of understanding between Israel and the US governing the US aid package for ten years from 2019.”
Around the World
• Amid fears of antisemitism, British Jewish students are not applying to certain universities. Moreover, they, along with an outgoing Labour student leader, told BBC blame Labour’s top leadership for contributing to the antisemitic atmosphere by failing to address the problem in the party’s ranks.
• Norwegian rapper curses Jews at concert celebrating diversity. It’s hard to give the Oslo event’s organizers the benefit of the doubt — the JTA notes that five days before the concert, Kaveh Kholardi tweeted “f***ing Jews are so corrupt.”
• Woman with 10-inch knife screamed ‘I want to kill all you Jews’ as she chased children outside London synagogue.
Commentary
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Judah Ari Gross: Ex-minister likely a spy who knew too little, but Iran still got an intel coup
– Amos Harel: Enlisting a former Israeli minister is a victory for Iranian intelligence
– Raphael Ahren: If convicted, ex-minister will head long list of top officials revealed as spies
– Ron Ben-Yishai: The Iranian connection: Gonen Segev’s narcissism and potential damage
– Yoav Limor: The highest-ranking spy in Israel’s history
– Ohad Zwigenberg: Photojournalists don’t create reality, they document it
– Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen: Needed: A decisive response to terror kites
– Jonathan Tobin: Why the establishment despises Trump’s ambassador to Israel
– Dennis Ross: A path forward for Team Trump on Israel and Gaza: Follow Nickolay Mladenov’s lead
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Victims of Arab apartheid
– Dr. Dave Rich: Antisemitism is well-defined already
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Adam Fagen; Segev via Government Press Office; US Capitol CC BY-NC Shankar Kuru; spy via Wikimedia Commons;
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