Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinians returned to the Temple Mount and police confirmed that all cameras installed after the murder of two policemen on July 14 were removed. But police officials told Israeli media they’ll be on high alert during Friday prayers tomorrow:
Police Commander of the Jerusalem District Maj.-Gen. Yoram Halevi said on Thursday morning that he expects many Muslim worshipers to attend prayers at the al-Aksa mosque on Friday, and that he expects attempts to harm police personnel and civilians.
“Do not test us tomorrow, and no one should be surprised if there are injuries on the other side,” he said in a stark message to the Palestinians. “I call on the leadership of the other side act to calm the atmosphere, and again not to test us tomorrow.”
More at the Times of Israel.
2. Accusing Al Jazeera of inciting Temple Mount violence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to shut down the Qatari network’s Jerusalem office. Reuters picked up on the Prime Minister’s statement on Facebook (in Hebrew).
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3. Digging in its heels, the US State Department defended a controversial terrorism report asserting that Israeli settlements and lack of hope drive Palestinian attacks.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Reuters: Saudi Arabia says King Salman’s contact with the US helped ease Temple Mount tensions. I wonder if reports like this irritate the Jordanian monarchy, which is the formal custodian of the Temple Mount.
• Jordan is reportedly refusing to allow Israeli Ambassador Einat Schlein and her staff return to Amman without official guarantees that an Israeli security guard who shot two people will be put on trial. Haaretz picked up on Jordanian media coverage which — as far as I’m aware — has not been officially confirmed by the government.
• President Donald Trump’s tweets against transgender people serving in the US military drew the Los Angeles Times‘ attention to the IDF, which allows them to serve.
“It makes us strong that we don’t waste time on questions like this,” said Stern, the former commander of the Israel Defense Forces Manpower Command. “It’s something to be proud of.”
Around the World
• After meeting with French Jewish leaders, French Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet won’t intervene in the trial of Sarah Halimi’s killer.
Although witnesses reportedly heard the suspect, Kobili Traore shouting “Allah akbar” and reciting Koranic passages as the 64-year-old woman was tortured and thrown to her death from a third floor balcony, prosecutors refuse to label the murder as a hate crime.
• A UK anti-Semitism watchdog “recorded 767 anti-Semitic attacks in the first half of 2017 — the highest figure recorded within six months since monitoring began in 1984.” The JTA picked up on a study by Britain’s Community Security Trust.
• 26 Venezuelan Jews fleeing ongoing riots, violence and food shortages arrived in Israel.
Commentary/Analysis
• Julian Reichelt, the editor of Bild — Germany’s largest newspaper — penned a withering criticism of German media’s coverage of the Temple Mount crisis. The Jerusalem Post picked up on Reichelt’s commentary (in the original German here).
“No other country, which suffers under permanent terror, is reported on in Germany in the cynical, ice-cold and heartless manner like Israel is,” wrote Julian Reichelt. His commentary was at one point the second most read article on the popular website.
• Over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern takes apart the anti-Semitism of the Chicago Dyke March and the Chicago SlutWalk.
It has long been obvious that left-wing anti-Semitism is a problem and that an overwhelming abhorrence of Israel often blurs into a generalized anger toward Jews. Organizers of both the Dyke March and the SlutWalk have not discovered the praxis of intersectionality; they have merely dressed up their bigotry in updated argot. Their anti-Semitism is not academic or novel but almost depressingly familiar, and we do not need to overhaul the progressive worldview to address it. We need only remind ourselves that anyone who would hold Jews to a different, higher standard is anti-Semitic, full stop. Whether it happens at a far-left march or an alt-right convention, the creation of special rules for Jews is irrational and wrong. By creating a stringent litmus test for openly Jewish demonstrators, the Dyke March and SlutWalk did not protect the oppressed. They became the oppressors.
Aw friends- the Star of David reps all Jews- 2ban it is like banning the American flag bc u hate trump – misplaced https://t.co/k1ypOQnmwT
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) July 26, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Erdogan, Haniyeh and Abbas are praying for an intifada
– Daniel Shapiro: Jordan walks a tightrope in Jerusalem
– Dov Lieber: At the Temple Mount, it’s not about metal detectors, it’s about sovereignty
– David Suissa: Arab hate for Jews is what’s holding them back
– New York Post (staff-ed) Turkish tyrant’s Temple Mount hypocrisy
– Clifford May: Qatar’s ‘press poodle’
Featured image: CC BY Jon S; Temple Mount CC BY-ND Derek Winterburn Belloubet via YouTube/Public Senat;
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