Today’s Top Stories
1. With peace efforts stuck in the mud, the Trump administration is focusing its efforts on improving Gaza’s living conditions, the Washington Post reports.
[A US infusion of development aid] could demonstrate a commitment to the Palestinian people that could make it more difficult for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to continue to rebuff overtures to engage in the peace process . . .
Israeli officials said they welcome a “Gaza first” approach as a way to both put pressure on Hamas and wait out the rival Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
2. According to Israeli media reports, Israel is moving to restrict Turkish activities in eastern Jerusalem, amid concerns that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to expand his influence there through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a non-governmental organization that also operates in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Turkish aid group is suspected of A) trying to purchase property in eastern Jerusalem, B) transferring money to Hamas, and C) involvement in last year’s Temple Mount protests. That all ties in with the Israel’s arrest of a Turkish national, Ebru Ozkan. She’s accused of trying transfer money to Hamas.
3. British Jews are furious with Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party over its newly adopted definition of antisemitism. The party, in essence, took the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and edited out the references to Israel and how certain criticisms of the Jewish state can be antisemitic.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, Stephen Pollard, Nick Cohen and Jewish Labour activists Mike Katz and Adam Langleben castigated the party’s watered down definition. The IHRA’s full definition of antisemitism was adopted by adopted by Britain in 2016.
So Labour have rejected a definition of antisemitism accepted by UK, Scottish and Welsh govts, 124 local authorities, gov’ts around the world and most Jews. It seems Labour found that definition too stringent – it prohibited anti-Jewish expression that Labour wants to allow
— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) July 5, 2018
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel’s High Court of Justice put a freeze on plans to demolish the illegally built Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar.
• Palestinians in Ramallah are accusing the PA of hypocrisy after the police force received 25 brand new American-made jeeps from the US consulate. The PA has boycotted American officials since the White House recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
• Foiling a terror attack, police arrested a Palestinian with meat cleaver and knife outside the Beit El settlement on Saturday.
• First cabinet member enters Temple Mount after three years as Prime Minister lifts ban.
#Palestinian media outlets are characterizing the visits of Israeli MKs on the Temple Mount as "storming." You can criticize without lying.
"To storm" means to "suddenly attack and capture (a building or other place) by means of force." They're walking, not storming. #FakeNews— Michele Chabin (@MicheleChabin1) July 8, 2018
• Britain to lead review of incitement in Palestinian textbooks, which is expected to be completed in September, 2019.
• South African International Relations Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced that Pretoria will not reinstate its ambassador to Israel. Pretoria recalled Ambassador Sisa Ngombane two months ago in protest of Israel’s handling of the Gaza border clashes.
• Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s niece was seriously wounded in Friday clashes along the Israel-Gaza border, Ynet reports.
• An incendiary balloon from Gaza landed near a kindergarten in moshav Netiv HaAsara on Sunday, causing light damage on Sunday.
• The Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) takes a rare look at Palestinian discontent with Mahmoud Abbas and the PA. Call it restless in Ramallah?
“We have never reached this level of weakness in front of our people,” said Saeb Erekat, a 63-year-old top aide to Mr. Abbas.
“At the end of the day, governing is not about how decent you are and how honest you are,” Mr. Erekat said. “You promised your people you do something. You didn’t.”
• Jerusalem denied an i24 News report that Israel hosted a military delegation from the United Arab Emirates “to review operations of the advanced US-made F-35 fighter jets.” The UAE is seeking to procure the advanced stealth fighter, and has openly participated alongside the Israeli Air Force in exercises in both Greece and the US.
Window Into Israel
• Plans for a mixed prayer pavilion at the Western Wall took another hit when another member of the committee tasked with implementing the compromise plan quit.
Religious Affairs Minister David Azoulay of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party announced his resignation from the committee in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he charged that the decision to build the permanent plaza had already been made by the premier ahead of a committee meeting set for Sunday.
Culture Minister Miri Regev and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked resigned from the committee in recent days.
• Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug announced that she will step down from her position when her five-year term ends in November. The 63-year-old Flug is the first woman to serve as the Bank of Israel’s governor. Flug did not indicate why she isn’t seeking a second term. Times of Israel coverage.
• A new right-wing list, the “United” faction, seeks to bring together Jerusalem’s haredi and national-religious residents in the October 30 municipal elections. Jerusalem City Council member Aryeh King heads the new faction and joins an already crowded field of people vying to succeed outgoing Mayor Nir Barkat.
Other announced candidates include Deputy Mayor Moshe Lion, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin, Kulanu MK and former Jerusalem deputy mayor Rachel Azaria, Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai, and activist Ofer Berkovich of the pluralistic Hitorerut faction.
• Northern Israel felt another minor earthquake today. It measured 3.2 on the Richter scale. After a number of minor earthquakes in recent days, a retired IDF Home Front officer warns a warns a major earthquake will hit Israel in the near future.
Around the World
• Progressive Democrats increasingly criticize Israel, and could reap political rewards, ABC News reports.
• French website removes ad for Auschwitz showerhead.
• Australian glasses company under fire for ad campaign filmed at Holocaust death camp.
Saying it was unaware of site’s sensitivity, Valley Eyewear apologizes and takes down pictures and video shot at Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia.
.@valleyeyewear, perfect for vampire cataract sufferers who love to loiter around Holocaust and WWII memorials. pic.twitter.com/M7ZjnQyQhg
— ♍arija (@hipishizik) July 1, 2018
• Jewish Israel advocate Sergio Kowensky was shot and killed in his Johannesburg work place last week. According to the South African Jewish Report, it’s not yet clear if the businessman, who was chairman of the Likud South Africa Jewish group, was specifically killed for his Zionist activities, or was “just another senseless act of urban violence on the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg.”
Kowensky, who was 67, is survived by his wife and three children.
• Anti-bullying experts are being sent to 170 German schools in a bid to counter rising antisemitic incidents.
• Two teachers at New York’s elite Riverdale Country School lost their jobs for sharing anti-Israel views with students.
Commentary
• Over at the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) Richard Goldberg and Jonathan Schanzer call on a the White House to declassify a single US document they say would blow the lid on the Palestinian refugee “scam.”
Unrwa labels more than five million Palestinians “refugees”—an impossible figure. The first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, yielded roughly 800,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. Perhaps 30,000 remain alive today, but Unrwa has kept the refugee issue alive by labeling their descendants—in some cases great-great-grandchildren—as “refugees,” who insist on the “right of return” to their ancestors’ homes. Israel categorically rejects this demand . . .
In 2012 Congress ordered the State Department to disclose how many Palestinians currently served by Unrwa fled the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and how many are merely their descendants. The Obama administration classified the report, citing national security—as if revealing foreign census data were a threat to America.
A year and half into office, Mr. Trump hasn’t reversed this policy, but momentum is building against it.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– David Weinberg: Thwart Turkey’s Jerusalem incursion
– Amos Harel: Assad returns to the Israeli border. The big question is who is coming with him
– Zvi Bar’el: As Syrian army heads south, Assad will require new agreements with Israel
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: The end of the Syrian revolution
– Avi Issacharoff: As war edges toward end, Iran faces hard fight to keep its influence in Syria
– Yarden Ben-Yosef: The digital battle over the narrative of the Gaza protests
– Daniel Siryoti: Abbas had better fall into line
– Lahav Harkov: When realpolitik crosses the line
– Yossi Beilin: When BDS has a Jewish face
– Gol Kalev: Are Palestinians ready tell supporters, ‘We’re not your toy?’
• Last but not least, Saeb Erekat is sour grapes after Australia ended direct financial assistance to the PA.
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA Armando G Alonso; Erdogan via Wikimedia Commons with alterations; Sisulu CC BY-ND Government ZA; F-35 U.S. Air Force with alterations; Flug via YouTube/Gazunda – Today’s Finance;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
