Today’s Top Stories
1. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan confirmed to Ynet that Israel is trying jump-start talks for a prisoner swap with Hamas. He didn’t elaborate on the specifics about reports that Germany is acting as a go-between to facilitate an exchange.
According to the source, the negotiations are being conducted on two levels — via German diplomats in the Palestinian Authority, and a second track working out of Berlin — and that Israel and Egypt both trust the German team. If a deal is reached, the paper reports that Egypt will facilitate the exchange.
Hamas currently holds the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who were killed during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Hamas also holds captive Israeli civilians Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who both wandered across the Gaza border in separate incidents. Both are mentally unstable.
The last prisoner swap was in 2011 when Israel released 1,027 prisoners for Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped and held captive for more than five years.
2. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center slammed an Israeli and Polish joint declaration after Warsaw amended a contentious Holocaust law.
Yad Vashem’s statement said the Israeli-Polish declaration contained a number of historical errors, and that it paves the way to continue with legal battles against historians and other Holocaust researchers – even though now these will be only civil and not criminal proceedings . . .
Another controversial part of the joint declaration is its final section, which drew parallels between anti-Semitism and “anti-Polonism and other negative national stereotypes” and condemned both equally.
Poland launched an PR blitz featuring full-page ads in Israel, Europe and the US. (You may ask, Why Germany?)
3. The trial of former cabinet minister Gonen Segev began in Jerusalem behind closed doors. Segev, who served as minister of energy and infrastructure from 1992 to 1995, is accused of spying and transferring secret information to Iran. Take your pick of Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, or Ynet coverage.
Segev is expected to plead not guilty initially, though the prosecution believes that there may eventually be a plea deal.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Palestinians
• There’s a new strain on Israeli-Jordanian tensions. When Britain’s Prince William visited the Temple Mount, Nizar al-Qaissi, a diplomatic working in Jordan’s mission in Ramallah, joined Waqf officials in greeting the royal, to the ire of Israeli officials. According to the Times of Israel:
Israel’s Foreign Ministry and police were opposed to al-Qaissi’s presence and made their position known to organizers of the prince’s visit, a well-placed source told The Times of Israel, speaking on condition of anonymity . . .
An official at the UK Consulate General in Jerusalem told The Times of Israel that “the Waqf invited those to attend and greet” the future king.
The Islamic Waqf, which administers the Temple Mount, is overseen and funded by Jordan. The 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan recognizes the Hashemite Kingdom’s “special role” in regard to Jerusalem’s holy sites.
No Israeli diplomats were present when Prince William visited the Western Wall. But a Jordanian diplomat, stationed in Ramallah, accompanied the future king to Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Official Israel is not pleased. https://t.co/EcgRsXEaVA
— Raphael Ahren (@RaphaelAhren) July 5, 2018
• If you can’t beat them, join them. Ariel Gold, a prominent backer of BDS and leader of CodePink, is mulling aliyah to get around Israel’s recent refusal to let her enter the country.
• Latest poll finds Palestinians favor jailed terrorist Marwan Barghouti as successor to Mahmoud Abbas.
• Worth a listen: London’s LBC Radio talked to an Israeli soldier about his recent experiences on the Gaza border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PXQJ4Xg0qk
• The IDF warned Bashar Assad that any Syrian forces entering the demilitarized zone along the Israel-Syria border will be legitimate targets. The DMZ was established in 1974. International peacekeepers monitoring the border left as the civil war made their work too dangerous.
Meanwhile, a Hezbollah commander in Syria confirmed to Reuters that the terror group commands Syrian soldiers.
“Hezbollah is a fundamental participant in planning and directing this battle,” a commander in the regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters. “Everyone knows this – the Israeli enemy, friends, and even the Russians.”
Hezbollah’s role includes directing Syrian forces, the commander said. It has also deployed its own elite forces.
Window into Israel
• A major study suggests desalinated water raises the risk of heart disease. Researchers said there was a failure to add magnesium to the water, leaving the Health Ministry and Water Authority to point fingers at each other.
According to the Israel Water Authority, only 1% of desalinated water is used for drinking and adding magnesium as part of the production process would be very costly. However, some argue that even the water used for agriculture should be enriched with magnesium because it is absorbed by the produce that people eventually eat, the television report said.
While the idea of introducing magnesium into the desalinated water has been raised in the past, the Water Authority and the Health Ministry have failed to agree on a plan to implement the proposal.
• Former employee at Israeli cyber-weapons firm sought to sell stolen top-secret code on the Darknet.
Around the World
• The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign is targeting a Berlin cultural festival because the Israeli embassy among the sponsors.
• Sydney high school students suspended over Nazi salutes and antisemitic bullying of Jewish students.
• Jews in Turkey fear growing antisemitism.
• Polish priest set for sainthood criticized for antisemitism.
Commentary
I am stuck in a real life conundrum. Being a practicing Jewish man, I want the freedom to perform my religious duties, a right granted to me and other minorities in the country by the constitution. However, the reality is that my Pakistani passport states that ‘this passport is valid for all countries of the world, except Israel’. As per the constitution, every citizen has the right to practice their religion, including religious pilgrimages. How then, can the state be justified in prohibiting not only Jews, but Pakistani Christians, Messianic Jews, and even Muslims from travelling to Jerusalem? This self-conflicting sentence on our passports is flawed and inconsistent with our constitution, and it is time to challenge this archaic law.
All I simply want is to invoke my given constitutional right to perform a religious pilgrimage without having the threat of criminal persecution from the state of Pakistan hanging over my head.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Oded Yaron: Hamas’ cyber honeypot exposes Israeli weakness and tech giants’ complicity
– Dan Margalit: Israel to declare a boycott on Viktor Orban? Get real
– Mitchell Bard: How UC Berkeley went from anti-Israel bastion to Israel studies powerhouse
– Sirwan Kajjo: Hezbollah’s indefinite presence in Syria
Featured image: CC BY Bartosz Brzezinski; water CC BY Aqua Mechanical;
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