Today’s Top Stories
1. The EU’s next steps against Israeli settlements could go beyond labeling imports. Reuters reports that the European Council of Foreign Relations, a think thank influential among EU policymakers, suggests targeting Israeli financial institutions over their activities in the West Bank:
But the new proposals would go much deeper and further, reaching into banking, loans and mortgages, qualifications earned in settlement institutions and the tax-exempt status of European charities that deal with Israeli settlements.
The most significant proposal is on banking, where large Israeli institutions have daily dealings with major European banks, while also providing loans and financing to Israeli businesses and individuals based in the settlements . . .
Under European Commission guidelines from 2013, EU- and member-state-funded lending cannot be provided to Israeli entities operating in the occupied territories.
But a Jerusalem Post followup says the council’s recommendations don’t worry Israeli officials.
2. In response to a Hamas crackdown on radical Salafists, the Salafists are threatening to fire rockets at Israel. Hamas has been in a power struggle with the Salafists parallel to the rising presence of Islamic State in the neighboring Sinai. More at AFP.
3. French prosecutors recommend closing the file on their investigation of Yasser Arafat’s death. Magistrates will make the final decision, hopefully closing the chapter on allegations that the PLO leader was poisoned. More at Reuters.
4. BBC Panorama Goes Off the Rails: A Jerusalem documentary is derailed by a skewed selection of sources and clumsy context.
5. HR Radio: Donald Trump and an Apartheid Wall: Sparked by Donald Trump, the Washington Post misrepresents the Jewish state’s security barrier. Listen to Yarden Frankl’s interview on the Voice of Israel by clicking on the image below.
6. If you’re in the New York area today, don’t miss the Stop Iran Rally in Times Square. It’s from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. There’s an impressive range of speakers lined up. Find out more and share on Facebook and Twitter.
Israel and the Palestinians
• For the first time in a year, the Israeli government is set to grant permits to build housing units in settlements. According to Haaretz, the bulk of the 906 permits to be granted will for housing in Givat Zeev, Beit El, and Maale Adumim.
• The International Criminal Court may not reopen the Mavi Marmara case. So said chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to the Times of Israel.
• Representatives of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Shiite Amal powowed in Lebanon, resolving to work together to fight Israel.
• Israel called on EU to stop funding organizations delegitimizing the Jewish state. The European Jewish Press reports:
Otherwise, the minister said, Israel may mull legislation that will directly criminalize funding of anti-Israel groups.
• The PA released Palestinian detainee Islam Hamed two years after he completed his prison term. Maan News reports that Hamed, who also has Brazilian citizenship, had launched a hunger strike in protest. Imagine the outrage if Israel did that.
He was charged in September 2010 with opposing the PA and possessing an unlicensed gun after he reportedly opened fire on a car carrying Israeli settlers.
Palestinian security services refused to release Hamed at the end of his three-year term, claiming that keeping him inside the prison was the only way to protect him from Israeli security forces.
• Visiting a Hamas terror tunnel, CNN‘s Oren Liebermann is astounded by how well it was constructed.
• Haaretz on the latest BDS shenanigans: Turns out that Britain’s National Union of Students, which supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, agreed to a sponsorship deal with Coca Cola for an upcoming NUS awards ceremony. (Coke’s Israeli subsidiary has factories in the West Bank.) The NUS censured its own president. Is SodaStream an NUS option now?
• In a debunked Hamas video, the terror group claims it dug a tunnel all the way to the Temple Mount undermining the Al-Aqsa mosque.
But according to Israel’s Channel 10, the tunnel featured in the report is fake and was a Hamas propaganda stunt to raise Palestinian morale and to mock Israel.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• I’m sure the White House has a perfectly good explanation for Ayatollah Khamenei’s latest rant. He posted this video on his own YouTube channel, then tweeted his own fresh quote.
#Israel‘s security will not be ensured whether there will be an #IranDeal or not. 11/27/2014 https://t.co/JNDxQZVUgi
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) July 20, 2015
• The Pew Research Center found that more Americans disapprove of the Iran deal than approve of it.
• Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited Israel, the first head of state to do so since the Iran deal.
Around the World
• Has Islamic State already reached Russian soil?
• The US slapped sanctions on three senior Hezbollah military leaders for their coordinating and participating in Syria’s civil war. A Lebanese businessman accused of procuring and shipping weapons to Hezbollah forces in Syria was also sanctioned. More on the story at Reuters.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Even if the Iran accord is a done deal and Israel’s protests fall on deaf ears, Bibi’s still being vocal in his opposition. Herb Keinon explains why the Prime Minister insists on “playing tuba in a string quartet.”
But it would be a mistake, diplomatic officials in Jerusalem explain, to see Netanyahu’s and Israel’s protestations as solely aimed at the unrealistic goal of bringing the accord to a full halt . . .
Jerusalem wants to stress that Israel has serious problems with certain elements of the deal, in the hope that maybe those problems can be fixed – if not through renegotiating the whole agreement, then perhaps through congressional legislation to plug specific holes, similar to legislation Congress recently enacted to battle BDS efforts.
• Iran inspections in 24 days? Not even close! (click via Google News)
Iran can easily stretch out the inspection of suspect nuclear sites for three months or more.
• I liked the straightforward Q&A format of Israeli ambassador Rafael Barak’s Toronto Star op-ed laying out the opposition to the Iran deal.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Raphael Ahren: Khamenei aims to ensure accords won’t lead to regime change
– Norman Bailey: Iran deal: The closer you look, the worse it gets
Featured image: CC BY-NC flickr/Israel Defense Forces with additions by HonestReporting; flag via Pixabay/dmnkltnr; atom CC BY-SA Deviant Art/deejaywill;
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