Islamic Wakf Threatens Temple Mount Escalation

Today’s Top Stories

1. The Temple Mount standoff continued today with clashes near the entrances to Jerusalem’s Old City. The Islamic Wakf, which administers the Temple Mount, announced that all mosques in Jerusalem will be closed on Friday and that worshipers will converge on the Temple Mount.

Meanwhile, the PA appealed to the international community to force Israel to remove metal detectors placed at the holy site following last week’s terror attack.

HR’s Simon Plosker went to the Lions Gate to see what was going on today, sharing his impressions on Facebook.

2. In a closed door meeting with several European leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made some blunt statements, not realizing that a microphone he was wearing was still live, allowing journalists in the next room to hear everything through their ear pieces, Haaretz reported.

Among the more noteworthy hot mic revelations was an admission that Israel has conducted air strikes on Hezbollah arms convoys in Syria “dozens of times,” that Israel has ties with Arab countries interested in Israeli technology, and the PM’s sharp criticism of European Union conditions for advancing bilateral ties.

3. To the ire of Israel, Irish President Michael Higgins recently met BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, the Times of Israel reports.

This comes several days after Netanyahu chided Ireland’s Foreign Minister earlier this month over Dublin’s support for non-governmental organizations that call for Israel’s destruction.

Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland meets Omar Barghouti, co-founder of Palestinian @BDSmovement at @irishcongress (Img: Kevin Cooper) pic.twitter.com/cqy5hn90SK

— IPSC (@ipsc48) July 17, 2017

Israel and the Palestinians

• Reuters visited Gaza to get a first-hand look at how Gaza health care is suffering as a result of feuding between Hamas and the PA. Without downplaying the suffering, I was particularly struck that the wire service visited a hospital named after Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of the co-founders of Hamas and pediatrician by trade.

I once wrote about Blaming Israel for HamasCare, pointing out:

The Rantisi name represents everything warped about Palestinian health care. It doesn’t take a surgeon general’s warning to know that suicide bombings are bad for your health, but Dr. Rantisi dispatched them by the dozens. And The Guardian’s own Rantisi obituary noted that he condoned killing Israeli children.

• Bungled photo caption of the day, courtesy the Times of London. There are no more restrictions on Palestinians visiting the Temple Mount than the airport metal detector that “restricts” you from boarding your plane. You can compare it with the original AFP/Getty caption.

Around the World

• Newsday: New York officials want to cancel a pair of upcoming Roger Waters concerts due to take place in the Nassau Coliseum, saying the show violates anti-BDS legislation passed by Nassau County lawmakers earlier this year.

• Australian Jewish activists blasted the University of Sydney, whose Dept. of Peace and Conflict Studies is holding a controversial BDS conference at the end of July. Details at The Australian:

Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission, said it was shameful that the good name of the university had been hijacked and lent to a “blatantly anti-Israel hate-fest”, affording the conference legitimacy and credibility that is “unwarranted”.

• Great moments in fools and their money soon parted:

• Police are investigating two incidents at an Edmonton Jewish school. According to the Edmonton Journal, a recycling bin outside Edmonton’s Talmud Torah School was lit on fire on Saturday nigt, which investigators suspect was deliberately set.

The next day, a security guard found the remains of a burnt garbage bag next to a door, along with scorch marks on the building’s facade. Police are examining footage from the school’s security cameras.

• UK media transparency took on a new meaning today when the BBC released the names of its highest paid employees, revealing a gender pay gap. And how is the BBC covering the UK’s story of the day, being that it is the story?

The BBC defends its stars' salaries #MattCartoon pic.twitter.com/XWQyT62Lqs

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 18, 2017

Commentary/Analysis

• Worth reading: Sara Weissman, editor of New Voices, a web by and for campus Jews, got a JTA soapbox to tell warn the Jewish community, “Forget BDS. It’s anti-normalization you should be worrying about.”

The things-not-to-normalize list includes no-brainers like racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia. It also often includes Zionism.

 

That means pro-Palestinian activism on campus looks different these days – because all activism looks different. Instead of boycotts, a more frequent form of campus organizing is protesting at and disrupting Israel-related events . . .

 

But anti-normalization does mean Jewish students, particularly Zionists, are tackling a whole new host of questions on campus: Do left-leaning Zionists have a place on the campus left? And if only non-Zionist Jewish students find acceptance on the left, is the campus left tokenizing Jewish students, deciding who’s a “good Jew” or a “bad Jew” from outside our community?

 

What does it mean to Jewish students that Zionist speakers are considered indefensible alongside alt-right speakers? Are Zionist students and pro-Palestinian activists defining Zionism the same way? . . .

 

It’s time we see the anti-normalization forest through the BDS trees. Because until we do, we’re missing out on the juicy stuff – the larger debates happening on campus and the real questions Jewish students are asking themselves.

• Plenty of broken reeds and burnt pixels trying to make sense of the Temple Mount situation.

– Eli Lake: Terror at the Temple Mount puts the lie to Palestinian rage
– David Horovitz: On Temple Mount, Israel long since made its fundamental compromise
– Pinhas Inbari: The Palestinians’ Temple Mount dilemma: Oppose Israel or each other?
– Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad: What does Jordan bring?
– Jonathan Tobin: Abbas can’t evade responsibility for Temple Mount unrest

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Nasreen Qadri: Why Radiohead should perform in Israel, writes an Arab playing with the band
– Josh Lipowsky: Designate Hezbollah as a whole as a terrorist entity
– Eldad Beck: French anti-Semitism, then and now

Featured image: CC BY Garry Knight;