Today’s Top Stories
1. Sanity prevails in The Hague: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court rejected an order to reopen her probe into flotilla deaths during the 2010 Israeli intercept of the Mavi Marmara. Times of Israel coverage.
2. Meet George Deek, Israel’s highest ranking Christian Arab diplomat.
3. There was an interesting backstory on Thursday’s meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators Silvan Shalom and Saeb Erekat in Amman. Does this Haaretz report represent a real shift in US and European diplomacy?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were aware of talks about the meeting and approved it. Senior officials in the Jordanian government and the European Union were also involved. The United States, however, was kept in the dark and Israel did not update the Americans before or after the meeting took place.
4. HR Radio: The Jewish Reporter Takes the Train: A BBC reporter touts his Jewish credentials to present a slanted documentary about the “racist” Jerusalem light rail. But as Yarden Frankl tells the Voice of Israel, the train brings people together every day. Click on the image below to hear the interview.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides humanitarian assistance and education for Palestinian refugees, is facing a money crunch. Palestinians are protesting cuts in services and the likelihood of UNRWA schools postponing classes — possibly for months. One idea being floated is to place the UNRWA under Arab League auspices.
• Jerusalem Post: Twitter removes offensive images of Israeli leaders clad in Nazi uniforms and keffiyehs.
• With ambassadors stepping down from their posts and no replacements announced, Israel will soon be without permanent envoys in the UN, Britain, Russia, and several other countries, according to Israeli media reports.
The report noted that four of positions in question are political appointments which need to be filled by Israel’s foreign minister, a position which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently fills. While some of the ambassadors have agreed to stay on until their replacement is appointed, Jewish organizations abroad have criticized the diplomatic disorder, saying that at a time when Israeli diplomacy is so critical, Israel ought to have a more orderly changing of the guard, Channel 2 reported.
• The Daily Beast picked up on the story of Dr. Mohammed Dajani, who takes Palestinian university students to Nazi concentration camps to teach the Holocaust.
“Palestinians should not compare the Nakba with the Holocaust,” he says. “While the Holocaust was the Final Solution for the Jewish people, the Nakba was not the Final Solution for the Palestinian people. It wouldn’t have been possible for Jews to sit with Nazis and reach an agreement. Within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is possible for Palestinians and Israelis to reach a comprehensive, just settlement that will accommodate both peoples. That’s why I think that teaching about the Holocaust is important. For Palestinians to realize that there is hope, and that in negotiation the path to peace lies.”
• Tears for jeers? The 14-year-old Palestinian girl whom Angela Merkel caused to cry wants to abolish Israel.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, told lawmakers in Tehran the nuclear deal permits Iran to violate current embargoes on the shipment of arms and construction of missiles. Zarif also boasted that the accord “puts the Zionist Regime in an irrecoverable danger.” Adam Kredo got the scoop.
• CNN/ORC poll: Majority of Americans want Congress to reject Iran deal
• Sami Yusuf, a popular Iranian-British singer, who has been called “Islam’s biggest rock star,” now faces an Iranian blacklist. The Guardian reports tht Iranian television will no longer feature his work because he recently performed in Israel:
Iranian news websites reported earlier this week that state TV had banned Yusuf’s music from all its channels after he performed in Nazareth, even though the city has a predominantly Palestinian population and most of his audience was Palestinian. The performance took place during the fasting month of Ramadan.
Yusuf posted a statement on his web site refusing to back down.
• Reporter Hannah Allam quotes State Dept. spokesman John Kirby on the latest revelations that the Syrians snookered international monitors overseeing what was supposed to be the dismantling of Assad’s chemical weapons program. (See the Wall St. Journal via Google News.) Why do I get the feeling this is prelude for what’s to come with Iran’s nukes?
• Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer discussed the rhetoric of the Iran debate with USA Today.
“Look, we have a very serious disagreement with the administration on a very serious issue,” Ambassador Ron Dermer told Capital Download. “But what I don’t doubt is the sincerity of the president or his team when they say they believe this deal not only makes America safe but makes Israel safe. Where we disagree is the judgment of actually what this deal is going to do.”
• Need a scorecard to keep track of the visiting and (non-visiting) VIPs in the news?
– John Kerry to visit Mideast, but skip Israel.
– French PM Valls to visit region, but not Israel
– Mukherjee to become first Indian president to visit Israel (in place of PM Modi)
– Buzz Aldrin, 2nd man on the moon, to visit Israel
– Amb. Arthur Lenk: South Africans should visit Israel
Commentary/Analysis
• Food for thought:
How to Treat Jonathan Pollard in the Age of Edward Snowden
• Leon Wieseltier offers a damning take on the Iran deal in The Atlantic.
But what is the alternative? This is the question that is supposed to silence all objections. It is, for a start, a demagogic question. This agreement was designed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. If it does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and it seems uncontroversial to suggest that it does not guarantee such an outcome—then it does not solve the problem that it was designed to solve. And if it does not solve the problem that it was designed to solve, then it is itself not an alternative, is it?
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jennifer Rubin: Blaming failure of a rotten deal on Israel?!
– Max Boot: What the Syrian weapons charade says about the Iran deal
– Bret Stephens: The Syria sham and the Iran deal (via Google News)
– Leon Hadar: Israel’s long-term interests – Saudi Arabia or Iran?
– Tony Badran: Obama’s equilibrium fantasy
– Danny Rubinstein: Abbas has come to the end of the road
– Ben-Dror Yemini: Israel’s Arabs don’t have to be Zionists to be loyal
Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Ed Yourdon with modifications by HonestReporting
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
