Today’s Top Stories
1. The UN released the full Schabas report on the Gaza war. The report itself will be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Council. As expected, Israel took harsh criticism. The Palestinians didn’t come out clean either. Israel rejected the report, as did Hamas.
I wonder if media coverage will reflect a certain moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas. This is the report’s key sentence setting the tone for the headlines:
The commission was able to gather substantial information pointing to serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law by Israel and by Palestinian armed groups.
See below for early reactions. Now that the report’s out, here are 3 media angles to beware of.
2. UN Watch: Leaked Saudi diplomatic cables indicate that the Saudis and Russians traded votes and cash to assure each other seats on the UN Human Rights Council. This is the same UN Human Rights Council due to self-righteously discuss the Schabas report next week.
3. In the northern Israeli village of Horfish, Israeli Druze attacked an IDF ambulance carrying an injured Syrian rebel. Haaretz reports that the Druze demanded that the army check whether the injured Syrian was a member of one of the rebel groups threatening Syrian Druze.
4. Media Headline Fails as Israeli Policeman Stabbed: Why is a Palestinian shot while an Israeli is “reportedly” stabbed in the same incident?
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the Schabas report as “politically motivated and morally flawed from the outset.” Cabinet ministers were ordered not to discuss the report.
• Yesterday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Jerusalem and Ramallah. Fabius told reporters the US is “more open than ever before” to allowing a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fabius also that Abbas told him that a PA national unity government would only include parties recognizing Israel. Details at Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post.
• Is the PA curtailing civil society? Mahmoud Abbas turning on ex-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad? The Times of Israel reports a non-governmental organization started by Fayyad, had its assets confiscated by the PA. And Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted this:
• YNet; Palestinian rock throwing in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank seems to be rising since Ramadan began on Thursday.
• Arab MK Basel Ghattas told the Jerusalem Post he’s joining the Gaza flotilla while fellow MK Haneen Zoabi expressed interest.
Ghattas said that the Marianne av Göteborg trawler would likely depart from Athens in the next day or two and that he does not expect any violence, as “we activists decided not to resist violently.” Three or four other ships have plans to join the Gaza “flotilla,” but only the Marianne av Göteborg is currently approaching Israel.
The IDF is monitoring the flotilla‘s progress.
• Egypt appointed a new ambassador to Israel. Hazem Khairat replaces the current ambassador, Atef Salem el-Ahl. Ambassador Salem hasn’t returned to Egypt’s embassy in Tel Aviv since 2012, when he was withdrawn in protest to Operation Pillar of Defense. According to YNet, Khairat will take up his new post in September.
• Gotta respect Israeli journalist Miri Michaeli for standing her ground when pro-Palestinian activists hollering slogans and waving flags tried to disturb her live stand up from London. The backstory’s at Algemeiner while the video’s on Facebook.
Michaeli was covering a conference on fighting BDS at the London School of Economics. Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog and former IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz were among the speakers (Mofaz arrived with diplomatic escort to prevent an attempt to arrest him, but that’s a separate story.) Michaeli’s tweet says, “Always fun to report from the London School of Economics.”
• According to Israeli media reports, Germany indirectly funds an anti-Israel church group that backs BDS.
• Associated Press looks at Israel and Hamas as frenemies.
• Thumbs up to the Christian Science Monitor’s in-depth look at the success of Israeli irrigation techniques with an impressive cover story, sidebar, and commentary.
• Israeli family from Sakhnin feared to have joined ISIS
Reactions to the Schabas Report
• The BBC acknowledged why William Schabas resigned as head of the inquiry.
The head of the inquiry, William Schabas, quit part-way through amid Israeli allegations of bias, acknowledging he had previously done work for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
• Here are a four tweets that had my antennae twitching.
Around the World
• India‘s boosting security as intelligence agencies warn of terror threat against Israelis.
• Top rebel leader accuses Jews of masterminding Ukrainian revolution.
• Iranian lawmakers advanced a bill banning nuclear inspectors from military sites. AP coverage.
• The BBC’s utterly riddled with liberal bias and groupthink, but don’t take my word for it. The Times of London published excerpts from the memoirs of Roger Mosey, a former editorial director. Here’s the overview story, one of the excerpts elaborating on the aforementioned bias and groupthink, and a staff-ed which sums up the problem:
He describes a news management system inclined to distort the news rather than report it; a delusional notion of the BBC’s typical local radio listener; and a “liberal-defensive” default mindset that bears scant relation to the real world. Publication of the memoir may not be welcomed in the corporation’s upper reaches as it prepares to defend the licence fee in a climate of continuing austerity, but this insider’s view is all the more timely and important for that.
Commentary/Analysis
• MK Yair Lapid‘s message to the UK: Don’t let your love of the underdog blind you to Hamas:
You always favour the underdog — any underdog. They seem to be right because they are weak, and in the best tradition of British gallantry you want to protect them and hit the stronger party over the head with your umbrella.
The strong, in our case, is Israel. We have the bad luck of being the stronger side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which causes many in Britain to prefer the other side. They like themselves much more when they stand by the weak Palestinians and miss the fact that being weak is not the same as being just . . .
Support for the underdog is being translated into support for boycotts of Israel. Most people don’t know that behind the campaign is the most distorted version of Islam, hidden by heavy financial backing from Iran and the Gulf States. Maybe now is the time for Britain to act according to the second of the great British traditions: fair play.
• I couldn’t agree more with James West. Best coverage of breaking news with national repercussions is always in the local paper because they know their community better than the network correspondents who parachute in. You can see the nuance and sensitivity of the Charleston Post & Courier.
From Boston to Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charleston, one thing has become crystal clear: To get real reporting—and to get it fast—you’ve got to switch off cable and go local. It’s here you’ll find the scoops, the sense of place, the authentic compassion; it’s here you can avoid the predictable blather from a candidate, or pundit, or hack filling airtime. It’s here you’ll find out what’s really happening to a particular group of Americans who have just been shoved into a tragic spotlight. Turn off the TV and Google the local paper on your phone. Find their Twitter feed. Follow their journalists.
• I’m also reading:
– Jeff Robbins: UN beats familiar anti-Israel drum
– Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians’ real strategy
– Dan Margalit: Block the flotilla of terror
– Alan Johnson: Israel’s allies cannot defeat BDS alone – we need Israel’s help
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Poster Boy with additions by HonestReporting; Schabas CC BY-NC flickr/Israel Defense Forces and Schabas via YouTube/RobertHJacksonCenter with modifications CC BY-SA HonestReporting; Palestinian flag CC BY flickr/Nicolas Raymond; UK flag CC BY flickr/Nicolas Raymond;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
