Today’s Top Stories
1. In what the Associated Press describes as a move of financial desperation, Hamas is distributing plots of land to its 40,000 civil servants in lieu of millions of dollars in salaries owed. Most of the land comes from what was once the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the southern part of the Strip. Hamas still hopes for help from sugar daddies in Qatar and Turkey:
Senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil said the land giveaway is a temporary fix, “not yet a strategic one” that would solve the group’s financial problems for good.
2. Prime Minister Netanyahu accused France of funding anti-Israel groups. This came after French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he was considering banning foreign funding for mosques in France.
A preliminary inquiry has revealed that several European countries, including France, directly support organizations that engage in anti-Israel incitement, call to boycott the country and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, Netanyahu said.
“We will discuss this with them because terror is terror everywhere and incitement is incitement which, apparently, encompasses the world, [and] governments must be as united as possible in dealing with them,” the prime minister said.
Netanyahu said the findings of the completed investigation would be submitted to the French government.
3. Golan Druze leader disputes UN statement on ‘hardship of Israeli occupation.’ Mayor Dulan abu-Saleh, of Majdal Shams, the largest Druze town in the Golan, said:
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about, it’s laughable,” abu-Saleh said. Druze in the Golan “don’t serve in the IDF and so far are only receiving from the state.” Referencing the war in Syria, he said: “Why don’t they condemn the horrors in Syria, where dozens of children are killed daily? Golan residents have a good life.”
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Israel and the Palestinians
• At a West Bank checkpoint near Nablus, a Palestinian stopped for acting suspiciously tried to stab Israeli security personnel this afternoon. Israeli security forces arrested a Palestinian man after finding ammunition, axes and knives in his car at a checkpoint on Saturday night.
• Israel and the US are close to wrapping up a memorandum of understanding that will govern the next 10 years of US military aid to Israel. The Washington Post updates the latest developments as Brig. Gen. Yaakov Nagel, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council, heads to Washington.
• The Times of Israel met with Dr. Mahmoud Habbash, the supreme sharia judge in the Palestinian Authority and Abbas’s adviser on religious and Islamic affairs to answer the question, What exactly is a martyr?
The judge defined a martyr, or shahid in Arabic, as “anybody who has been killed in a war against non-Muslims.” He also said Palestinians are in an open “state of war” with the “Israeli occupation.” In the context of this state of war, he argued, any Palestinian killed as a result of it — whether directly or indirectly, whether an Israeli fundamentalist firebombed his home, or whether he attacked a soldier or a civilian, and yes, even if he was killed while stabbing to death a teenage Israeli girl in her bedroom as was the case of the murderer of 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel last month — is a “victim” of the conflict because his actions were a product of it. And therefore, said Habbash, he is a shahid . . .
The Islamic tradition of martyrdom is mainly taken from the Hadith, a massive collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad or his close companions. Each martyrdom-related Hadith expands on the concept. As this reporter has learned through many months of asking Palestinians what they think a martyr is, this much is clear: the concept of martyrdom is like a ball of yarn — the more you pull at it, the more it unravels. Habbash’s explanation of martyrdom as applicable to one who falls fighting non-Muslims is hardly the last word on the subject. For example, during the infighting between Hamas and Fatah in 2006-2007, each referred to only its own dead as martyrs. Even at Habbash’s level of scholarship, the concept demands fluidity.
So if I understand this correctly, Mahmoud Abbas’ top religious adviser says that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is indeed a religious conflict.
• In a moment of candor, a Palestinian official confirmed that the PA refuses — for purely political reasons — to meet with Israelis to coordinate water usage in the West Bank, despite an agreed-upon mechanism in the Oslo accords. Here’s what the PA’s Fadi Abdel Ghani told National Public Radio‘s Daniel Estrin:
ESTRIN: And that’s where you get into politics. Fadi Abdel Ghani of the Palestinian Water Authority says the Palestinians refuse to participate in the committee because the Israeli members will only approve water improvements for Palestinians if the Palestinians approve projects for Jewish settlements. Palestinians oppose Jewish settlements because they’re built in occupied territory they want for their own state.
FADI ABDEL GHANI: In the end, no one of us can sign such documents for them. If you want to give me water, I have to approve projects for the settlements? No.
• Palestinians are protesting a Red Cross decision to cut back a program arranging family visits for prisoners. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Red Cross is scaling back visits because of what its statement called “a clear decrease” in the number of Palestinians visiting jailed family members, “resulting in buses chronically under-capacity.” But Palestinians said this was because of Israeli roadblocks, village closures, and revoked permits.
• The conscience of Zion, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, declared Israel an evil state.
@DanyCushmaro If you judge by Israel's treatment of the refuge seekers the answer is definitely (and sadly) a resounding yes.
— Amos Schocken?? (@AmosSchocken1) July 29, 2016
• The New York Times introduces us to Talleen Abu Hanna, a Christian Arab who is also Israel’s first transgender beauty queen. She’ll be representing Israel at an upcoming international transgender beauty pageant in Barcelona in September.
The last time reporter Diaa Hadid wrote about the Israeli-Arab LGBT scene, she ran into trouble when A) four of the people she interviewed said their quotes had been misrepresented, and B) then-public editor Margaret Sullivan rapped the report for lacking context.
“I’m Arab. I’m Christian. I’m Israeli. All that is tied together,” Ms. Abu Hanna said. “And I’m going to win.”
• R&R is a big thing in Gaza these days, to the extent that “state-of-the-art health clubs” and “several posh beachfront hotels and restaurants” caught someone’s eye for a Reuters photo essay.
I don’t envy people living in Gaza, but photos of crowded beaches, pool halls, gyms, and people leisurely smoking from a hookah don’t jive with the spin that Gaza is the world’s largest outdoor concentration camp.
https://twitter.com/ReutersParisPix/status/759015400889651200
Around the World
• As widely expected, Syria’s “Nusra Front” severed ties with Al Qaeda, renaming itself “Jabhat Fatah al-Sham” (Front for the Conquest of the Levant). The move opens up possibilities for A) its participation in political negotiations over Syria’s future, B) joining the more “legitimate groups” fighting ISIS, and C) getting money from Saudi Arabia or Qatar.
• According to Haaretz, an Iranian general visiting the Syrian-Israeli border reportedly survived an assassination attempt by Israel or Syrian rebels.
• A teacher at a prestigious Parisian school is under investigation for sharing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories with her students on Facebook.
• A Stamford, Conn. man was indicted for making anti-Semitic threats online. FBI agents searching Kendall Sullivan’s home “seized more than two dozen firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and additional firearm components.”
• A number of Peruvians who converted to Shiite Islam under Iranian auspices are trying to start a new political party called “Hezbollah Branch in Peru.” More at Asharq al-Awsat.
Peruvian media outlets lately spoke about the danger of the presence of groups similar to the so-called Hezbollah on the Peruvian territories, for carrying terrorist ideologies and suspected activities that Iran might use to spread the Shi’ite sect and extend the ideology of the Iranian Revolution.
Commentary/Analysis
• Are IDF investigations sufficiently independent from the chain of command, and what does this mean for efforts to drag Israel before the International Criminal Court? Lawfare‘s Peter Margulies takes a closer look.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Nadav Shragai: ‘What if the third Lebanon war breaks out tomorrow?’
– Ardie Geldman: The invisible industry of deceit
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Don’t forget the calm in Gaza
– Yossi Melman: Why Nasrallah fears strengthening Israeli-Saudi ties?
– Elliott Abrams: The new State Department assault on Israel
– Letty Cottin Pogrebin: Bill Clinton would be an ideal Middle East envoy
– Ben Macintyre: Our Middle East carve-up is no cause for shame
– Bakir Lashkari: Building friendship between Kurdistan and Israel
– Mohammad Alkassim: What’s really behind the Nusra Front’s split from Al-Qaida?
Featured image: Photo by Ryan McGuire via Gratisography with additions by HonestReporting; France CC BY-SA Joshua Veitch-Michaelis; martyrdom poster CC BY-NC-SA delayed gratification;
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