Today’s Top Stories
1. The world mourned the passing of Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel. The 87-year-old Wiesel — often described as “the conscience of the world” — is survived by his wife of 47 years, Marion, and a son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel.
See obituaries at Haaretz, Times of Israel, Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, JTA, and The Guardian, plus tributes by Ronald Lauder, Avner Shalev, and George Clooney.
2. Uh-oh: Scotland Yard summoned Tzipi Livni for Gaza war crimes questioning. The ex-foreign minister is currently in London for a Haaretz conference.
In the meantime, the Foreign Ministry and other government agencies worked furiously to avoid the summons, with the eventual resolution being that it was arranged for Livni to have a state meeting with a British diplomat.
By adding this meeting into her schedule, her visit fell under the definition of a “state visit” which gives her immunity from attending the questioning.
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3.The IDF arrested a number of Palestinian suspects involved in the deadly shooting of a West Bank rabbi and his family. Rabbi Michael “Miki Mark” was killed when his car was hit by gunfire and overturned. His wife and two children are being treated for injuries. The 48-year-old director of a yeshiva in the settlement of Otniel was laid to rest this morning. He leaves behind 10 children.
Jerusalem is cutting monthly tax transfers to the PA by an amount equal to what the PA pays in stipends to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and their families.
Also in response to the murders of Rabbi Mark and Hallel Yaffa Ariel, the government approved 42 new housing units in Kiryat Arba and cancelled the entry of Palestinians laborers with work permits from certain areas of the West Bank. The IDF has also placed Hebron under closure.
Israel and the Intifada
• The Quartet of Mideast envoys (namely the US, EU, Russia and the UN) released a report on Friday essentially calling on Israel to stop settlement activity and on the PA to stop incitement. See Wall St. Journal (via Google News) coverage, or read the Quartet’s full report.
The report identified three main threats for reaching a deal to create two separate Israeli and Palestinian states: the glorification of violence and terrorism; Israel’s settlement expansions in the West Bank; and the Palestinian Authority’s lack of control in Gaza.
Tweet of the day goes to Gregg Carlstrom:
The long-awaited Quartet report draws basically the same conclusions as every report on the conflict since 2006. pic.twitter.com/e1H5UNhi78
— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) July 1, 2016
• Soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian woman trying to stab them at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Friday morning. In Netanya, a Palestinian stabbed two Israelis before being shot and killed by an armed civilian Thursday evening.
• The IDF retaliated with air strikes on Gaza after a rocket hit an empty Sderot kindergarten on Friday night. Aknaf Beit al-Makdis, an ISIS-affiliated terror group, claimed responsibility.
• According to Israeli media reports, Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to take calls from world leaders because he can’t bring himself to condemn Palestinian terror attacks that killed a rabbi or a 13-year-old girl.
A Channel 2 report on Saturday said numerous Israeli and world leaders had contacted Abbas, pleading with him in particular to speak out publicly in the case of Ariel, but to no avail. Abbas, said the report, is even refusing to take some of the calls.
He has also ordered media loyal to him in the Palestinian Authority to keep the terror cases out of the headlines.
• Jerusalem Post: Israeli diplomacy foiled an attempt by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to insert language declaring that “self-determination and national liberation does not constitute terrorism.” into a UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy resolution.
• Social media culpability with Palestinian incitement is back under a microscope. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan harshly denounced Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg after the Kiryat Arba terrorist Muhammad Tarayrah’s Facebook posts repeatedly expressing a desire to die as a martyr came to light.
Facebook rejected Erdan’s criticisms.
“Some of the victims’ blood is on Zuckerberg’s hands,” he told Channel 2. “Facebook has turned into a monster. The younger generation in the Palestinian Authority runs its entire discourse of incitement and lies and finally goes out to commit murderous acts on Facebook’s platform.”
Erdan’s comments touched on Facebook posts by the terrorist who murdered an Israeli girl, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, in Kiryat Arba last week. Mohammed Nasser Tra’ayra, 19, from the Palestinian village of Bani Na’im, had been praising terrorists and voiced his wish to die a “martyr’s death” on Facebook in the days before the attack.
Erdan said Facebook “could have reported to the police or defense officials about the post put up by that despicable murderer.”
He said that when the police ask Facebook for help, “when it comes to a Judea and Samaria [West Bank] settlers, Facebook doesn’t cooperate and sets a high bar for removing inciting content and posts.”
• PA and Fatah quick to honor murderer who killed 13-year-old girl in her sleep
• The State Department confirmed that Hallel Yaffa Ariel, the 13-year-old girl stabbed to death in her sleep last week was a US citizen.
13 year old girl murdered in her sleep in the West Bank this morning is at least the 7th US citizen killed by Pal. terrorists in last yr
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 30, 2016
• Police arrest 58 Arab suspects for rioting on Temple Mount
• Ten years after the Second Lebanon War, a reinforced children’s hospital opens in northern Israel.
• According to the New York Times, the White House is prepared to “substantially” raise the amount of military assistance to Israel — on condition that Israel spends the the extra money on “United States-made goods and services, rather than spend a sizable portion in their own country as they are permitted to do now.”
Earlier this year, Israeli manufacturers said such a military aid deal would be a “mortal blow” for Israel’s defense industries and cost “thousands of jobs.”
• A Turkish aid ship carrying 11,000 tons of relief supplies including rice, flour, and toys.
• Associated Press previews Prime Minister Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Africa. He’ll be spending four days visiting Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Israel is hoping that the visit — the first by an Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades — will usher in a new era in which it provides African states with security and agricultural assistance in return for support in international forums.
Around the World
• Iran held its annual Quds Day of solidarity with the Palestinians rabid calls for Israel’s destruction. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said Lebanon has 100,000 missiles ready to strike Israel.
Lebanese Shiites didn’t get to mark the day, however. Hezbollah cancelled its Al-Quds Day activities in Lebanon following a string of suicide bombings linked to Islamic State.
• Israeli officials says the UK Labour Party apologized for Jeremy Corbyn’s recent comments equating Israel with Islamic State.
• India successfully tested a Barak-8 missile defense system jointly developed with Israel. Take your pick of Times of India or Times of Israel coverage.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Nadiya Al-Noor‘s open letter as Muslim woman denouncing Palestinian terror pulls no punches.
Let me tell you something. Stabbing pregnant women in the stomach is not “resistance.” Shooting people at a cafe is not “resistance.” Driving your car into pedestrians is not “resistance.” Bombing a bus is not “resistance.” Breaking into a woman’s home and murdering her in front of her children is not “resistance.” And stabbing a little girl to death in the one place where she was supposed to be safe is certainly not “resistance.” Terrorism is not resistance. Terrorism is an unjustifiable crime . . .
We must decry all terrorism committed. We must not bend over backwards to try to justify it. We must not blame innocent people for being slaughtered, or justify the actions of the terrorists who slaughter them. If we justify acts of terrorism, it is an indication that we do no really believe in peace.
When you make excuses for terrorists, you support terrorism. Period. Until we stand against terrorism in all its forms, against terrorists from every background, we Muslims are hypocrites. Allah does not love hypocrites.
• Eli Lake unpacks PA stipends to Palestinian terrorists and their families.
One problem is that the payments to terrorists’ families are exceedingly popular these days. Ziad Asali, the president and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, told me that in recent years the media and politicians have elevated these payments to something “sacred in Palestinian politics.” Asali said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and others are too weak to stop it. “This is where we find ourselves now. The vast majority understand there has to be an end to violence; it’s not serving the Palestinians in any way,” Asali said. “But I think nobody really has the stature and clout to confront these issues publicly.”
See also Evelyn Gordon.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Noam Amir: Palestinians see consent in Abbas’ silence
– Raphael Ahren: Quartet report’s focus on incitement is a victory for Netanyahu
– Elliott Abrams: The Middle East Quartet’s new report misses the point
– Jonathan Tobin: A moral equivalence epidemic
– Smadar Perry: Time for Abbas to go
– Barbara Diamond: Facebook: A tool for murdering Jews
– Itamar Eichner: Why is the US military aid package so important?
– Daniel Gordis: Brexit and the validation of Zionism
– Yaakov Katz: Turkey and the media war
– Efraim Inbar: Hamas: Realistic expectations are key
– Stephen Pollard: After comparing Israel to ISIS, stop pretending Jeremy Corbyn is an amiable buffoon
– Dov Waxman: Britain’s left has a ‘Jewish problem’
– Aviva Klompas: 5 advocacy lessons I learned from Israelis
– Nadav Shragai: Zionism is still here
– Eugene Kontorovich: How an alleged BDS ‘victory’ became one of its worst defeats
Featured image: CC BY Rui Fernandes with additions by HonestReporting; Wiesel CC BY-ND Taylor Spaulding; crescent CC BY-SA laura gonzalez;
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