Today’s Top Stories
1. What’s behind the IDF’s warnings about launching preemptive strikes in the Sinai on Islamic State?
2. The Knesset gave Israeli prison officials authorization to force-feed hunger-striking inmates.
Israel has long been concerned that hunger strikes by Palestinians in its jails could end in death and trigger waves of protests in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But Israel’s Medical Association, which considers force- feeding a form of torture and medically risky, has urged Israeli doctors not to abide by the law.
See former Soviet gulag prisoner Michael Rivkin’s perspective on force-feeding at i24 News.
3. It turns out the two people running the Huffington Post’s new Arab-language site, HuffPost Arabi, have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Anas Fouda and Wadah Khanfar bring their Islamist agenda to Ariana Huffington’s new venture:
An Egyptian national now living in Turkey, Fouda was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in 2013 on suspicion of affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) – an affiliation which he freely admitted had existed since 1988, though he claimed to have held no formal party role since 1995. A browse of his Twitter timeline shows his politics to be fairly bread-and-butter MB . . .
Khanfar, however, is the heavyweight of the pair; the man who made Al Jazeera the titan of Arabic media that it is today. He’s also, according to ex-colleagues, the man who made Al Jazeera the Muslim Brotherhood mouthpiece that it is today.
Israel and the Palestinians
• A group of Hamas delegates to the Palestinian parliament called for a revolt against the PA. The Palestinian parliament’s last official meeting was in 2007, before Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. The deputies were protesting the PA’s West Bank crackdown on Hamas.
• Yesterday, two Israelis were indicted for last month’s arson attack at the Church of the Loaves and Fishes in Tagbha, with a third indicted today.
• An Iraqi parliamentarian called on his country to establish ties with Israel. Mithal al-Alusi, who is leader of the secular Ummah party, was interviewed by a Kuwaiti newspaper. The Jerusalem Post picked up:
The outspoken al-Alusi, who has previously visited Israel a number of times, referred to diplomatic relations with Israel as “our [Iraqi] interest,” and added that he does not want Baghdad’s interests to be solely to “Abu Mazen,” the name by which Mahmoud Abbas is commonly referred to in the Arab World.
• Why is Muslim harassment of Jews on the Temple Mount increasing?
• The Canadian military is purchasing Iron Dome radar technology. According to Vice News, the system will likely be deployed in the Arctic, to counter increasing Russian activity, adding that Ottawa doesn’t expect the harsh weather to pose problems for the system. Defense Minister Jason Kenney posted this enthusiastic tweet.
• Here’s a nice win-win situation: Arab companies in the Mideast are outsourcing work to Gaza. The practice is called “offshoring” because the outsourced work — such as web design, programming and translation — is specifically done out of the company’s home country. The Financial Times (via Google News) explains what this means for the Palestinians:
Offshoring, with its promises of a flat, connected world, is on the face of it a godsend for Gaza. The enclave has a captive market of young graduates with marketable skills and few other areas to deploy them. Good jobs of any kind are a prize in Gaza.
Around the World
• Israel’s consul general in Philadelphia warned Jerusalem that American Jews are too divided on the Iran deal to unite with Israel. According to Haaretz:
Many diplomats feel that the American Jewish community is caught in a vise between Israel’s fight against the agreement with Iran and the internal American political conflict over it.
• Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rose 53 percent rise 2015. The JTA picked up on a report by UK Jewry’s watchdog organization, Community Security Trust.
Commentary/Analysis
• Over at the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News), Chloe Valdary takes a closer look at Palestinian hostility to ex-PA prime minister Salam Fayyad and why his nation-building agenda and reforms are unfortunately unwelcome in Ramallah.
• Hezbollah’s presence in the Syrian Golan has no strategic value to Bashar Assad. The Lebanese terror group is taking advantage of the situation to expand its threat against Israel. Yoav Stern explains:
But what is the link between the protection of the Syrian regime against its enemies and the activity on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights? This is neither a major supply route towards Damascus, nor an area of strategic importance to the activity of the Syrian army and its allies. Nearly 50 kilometers separate al-Khader and the presidential palace in Damascus, and a short distance from the Syrian capital, determined opposition forces are at work.
It would make much more sense that Hezbollah fighters spill their blood in the Qalamun Mountains or the town of Zabadani, areas whose control are far more important to the survival of Assad, and not in the Golan Heights, a sparsely inhabited area that does not present a real threat to Damascus.
• Israel rejects Obama’s olive branch, for now
• Israeli officials who got op-ed soapboxes to weigh in on the Iran deal include ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni and consul general Ido Aharoni.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Amos Yadlin: How Israel and US can manage Iran deal aftermath
– Anshel Pfeffer: Iran-deal evangelists are biggest threat to its success
– Jay Bergman: Is Obama’s foreign policy similar to Cold War diplomacy?
– Dennis Ross: How to make Iran keep its word
– David Makovsky: Why Jonathan Pollard’s release means little
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Rui Fernandes with additions by HonestReporting; mosaic CC BY flickr/James Emery;
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