Today’s Top Stories
1. Hopes for an Iranian agreement by tomorrow’s deadline are fading quickly. According to Reuters, what’s holding things up are UN sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and the lifting of an arms embargo.
2. While Iran was talking peace in Vienna, Jordan busted an Iranian operative with 100 lbs of explosives. According to the Times of Israel, the terrorist was targeting Saudi interests.
3. Are French diplomats getting cold feet about presenting their peace initiative to the UN Security Council?
Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said at a briefing to The Jerusalem Post editorial staff on Sunday that he was not sure the French will go ahead with their plans to submit a resolution as they will be hesitant to submit a draft resolution if they feel the US will veto it, or if the Palestinians will not be satisfied with a “watered down” resolution the Americans might be willing to let pass.
4. Tears Before Terror: Why did the New York Times run a picture of a weeping family rather than the terrorist who was killed?
5. If you haven’t signed on yet, add your name to HonestReporting’s petition demanding the New York Times tell the truth about Israel and the UN Human Rights Council. (It caught Roseanne Barr‘s attention.) Make your voice heard and sign the petition now.
Israel and the Palestinians
• According to London’s Jewish Chronicle, Benyamin Netanyahu asked Britain and Germany to vote in favor of the resolution adopting the Schabas report at the UN Human Right Council.
Mr Cameron’s initial reaction was that it would be “pure madness”, particularly as he had made several statements voicing support for Israel recently.
But the Israelis feared that, had the watered down resolution been overturned, the original resolution on the report by the Gaza Conflict Commission of Inquiry would have been revived . . .
The JC has discovered that on Friday morning Benjamin Netanyahu’s office then began a series of phone calls to some of Israel’s key allies, including Angela Merkel, making the extraordinary request that they vote against Israel and against Israel’s public opposition to the resolution.
• Worth reading: Here’s an important, slowly growing trend: Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem breaking old taboos and seeking Israeli citizenship. The Christian Science Monitor reports that access to Israeli education, boosting job prospects, obtaining a passport, quality of life issues, even living in Jewish neighborhoods, are among the factors.
• Palestinians continued heating up the holy month of Ramadan: We’re talking about another the second arson in two days in the Jerusalem forest, which forced the closure of an adjacent train station. And Andreas Fagerbakke caught this dramatic photo of Palestinians stoning the Jerusalem light rail.
• The Associated Press visited Gaza’s Shijaiyah neighborhood to see how residents were coping with the lack of reconstruction. This snippet blew me away. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall AP war coverage reflecting this first-person verification:
There is strong evidence Hamas had used residential areas like Shijaiyah for cover throughout the fighting, and AP reporters witnessed rockets flying out of populated neighborhoods at times. The Israeli army says six militants were among those killed in that airstrike, a claim denied by local residents.
Meanwhile, AFP took the time to see how Israeli communities near the Gaza border have fared since the war.
• Islamic Jihad builds Gaza watch tower directly across the border from an IDF structure.
• Bloomberg News caught up with with former Palestinian strongman and Mahmoud Abbas’s would-be successor, Mohammed Dahlan.
• UNESCO settled the Jesus baptism site controversy, say Jordanian officials. But Israeli officials prefer not to wade into debates on whether Al Maghtas (a.k.a. Bethany Beyond the Jordan) or Qasr el Yahud is more authentic.
Around the World
• Journalists working in Egypt may be in for trouble: Cairo is crafting a law that would criminalize the reporting of terror statistics which contradict those provided by official government sources. More at The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and AFP. Reporters running afoul risk two years in prison. This comment by the Justice Minister could have been crafted by George Orwell:
“The government has the duty to defend citizens from wrong information.”
• Greeks voted down an austerity plan and raising questions about the future of the Eurozone, the union of 19 European countries that use the Euro currency. Not many Israeli angles on the story, though the shekel to euro exchange rate fell to NIS 4.16/€, the lowest rate ever.
• Turns out that 7/7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan visited two British men in Israel a few weeks before their suicide attack in Tel Aviv. And British police never followed up on this lead. Is there a Hamas-tie in to the London terror? Details at Sky News:
The Government’s official account of 7/7, published in 2006, did mention Khan’s visit to Israel but claimed there was “no evidence of anything suspicious”.
Three Israelis were killed when Asif Hanif blew himself up in a 2003 attack on Mike’s Place, a beachfront restaurant. Omar Sharif’s bomb didn’t detonate, and his body was later found washed up on the Tel Aviv beach. Hamas released a martyrdom video. Both were British citizens.
• During a visit to Israel, Spain’s Justice Minister, Rafael Catala, discussed his country’s law of return for descendants of expelled Jews with Israel HaYom.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Professor Edward Beck lays out 9 Successful Strategies to Defeat Academic BDS
• Is Obama losing Haaretz?
• Yossi Beilin‘s rightly worried about the lack of Palestinian democracy, and Mahmoud Abbas’s recent moves against political rivals. Something’s indeed rotten in the kingdom of Ramallah.
Israel has no business getting involved. Our interest is securing quiet in the West Bank, continuing the security cooperation and resuming peace talks with an adequate Palestinian partner. We did not intervene to stage democratic elections in either Sadat’s Egypt nor King Hussein’s Jordan prior to signing peace deals with them. Yet the world, and first and foremost those states that transfer huge sums of money to the PA, cannot afford to gloss over this bedlam. They ought to demand explanations from Abbas and he’d have to provide some.
• Are you boycotting Pink Floyd? Sanctioning Dark Side of the Moon? Divesting yourself of The Wall? You’ll find a kindred spirit in Australian columnist Rowan Dean, who is fed up with Roger Waters and his BDS shenanigans.
The mistrust and mutual suspicion between Israel and Palestine can only be removed through building trade, commerce and a political contract that guarantees security and peace to all parties and an end to terrorism.
BDS is a sinister and deliberate barrier to peace, just another brick in the wall of hatred.
• Spoilers alert: 6 guys to watch the day after an Iran deal
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Yossi Melman: Egypt, Hamas, ISIS and Israel after the latest rocket attack
– Smadar Perry: How long can Israel rely on Egypt to keep terror off its fence?
– Pittsburgh Tribune Review: UN coddling anti-Semites (staff-ed)
– Khaled Abu Toameh: When Palestinians die in jail
– Avi Issacharoff: PA determined to curb Hamas in West Bank
– Reuven Berko: The growing Hamas-PA rift
– New York Post: The unholy lunacy of Israel-bashing churches (staff-ed)
– Melanie Phillips: Obama’s surrender to Iran nears its climax
Featured image: CC BY-SA flickr/Tom Woodward with additions by HonestReporting; Jordan River CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Viktor Karppinen;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
