Today’s Top Stories
1. Jewish-Arab tensions rose faster than the mercury in a heat wave after a Palestinian toddler, Ali Dawabsha was killed in a fire likely started by Jewish extremists terrorists who threw a Molotov cocktail into the family’s home in the West Bank village of Duma, near Nablus.
Hebrew graffiti saying “revenge” and “long live the messiah” along with a Jewish star was found spray painted one wall of the charred house. According to Israeli media reports, the suspects are believed to have come from an illegal settler outpost near Shiloh.
Ali’s parents, Saad and Riham, and four year-old brother, Ahmed, were injured in the attack. They’re hospitalized in Israel and fighting for their lives.
2. Shortly before this roundup was published, Shira Banki, the 16-year-old girl stabbed at Thursday’s gay pride parade in Jerusalem succumbed to her injuries. Five other people were injured when Yishai Schlissel began stabbing marchers.
Schlissel had served 10 years in prison for stabbing people at Jerusalem’s 2005 pride parade. He was released from prison just three weeks ago. More at the Jerusalem Post.
3. Still not convinced that Iran wants to destroy Israel? Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has published a book outlining his views on Israel. Amir Taheri describes an Islamist Mein Kampf that counts on a combination of Hezbollah-style units in the West Bank and the world’s eventual “Israel fatigue.”
Edited by Saeed Solh-Mirzai, the 416-page book has received approval from Khamenei’s office and is thus the most authoritative document regarding his position on the issue.
Khamenei makes his position clear from the start: Israel has no right to exist as a state . . .
Khamenei insist that he is not recommending “classical wars” to wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he want to “massacre the Jews.” What he recommends is a long period of low-intensity warfare designed to make life unpleasant if not impossible for a majority of Israeli Jews so that they leave the country.
His calculation is based on the assumption that large numbers of Israelis have dual-nationality and would prefer emigration to the United States or Europe to daily threats of death.
Khamenei makes no reference to Iran’s nuclear program. But the subtext is that a nuclear-armed Iran would make Israel think twice before trying to counter Khamenei’s strategy by taking military action against the Islamic Republic.
Israel and the Palestinians
• In the aftermath of the deadly Duma arson, Palestinians clashed with the IDF. A 17-year-old Palestinian was killed at one riot near Ramallah; soldiers opened fire with rubber bullets after someone threw a firebomb at them. In Nablus, a gang of Palestinian youths sought to torch Joseph’s tomb.
• Haaretz reports that Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon will seek administrative detention against the suspects if there isn’t enough evidence for indictments.
• Bizarro headline of the day, courtesy the Sunday Times of London. Teenager Laith al-Khalidi was killed when soldiers opened fire after a demonstrator threw a Molotov cocktail near Ramallah. But the other fatality had nothing to do with the Dawabsha tragedy.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Mohammed al-Masri, 17, died in Gaza after approaching the border fence, ignoring soldiers’ warnings, and possibly throwing stones at the Israeli troops.
• Israelis rallied on Saturday against hate and violence following the attacks on the Dawabsha family and the pride parade.
• AP took a closer look at Jewish violence, including last month’s arson attack at the Church of the Loaves of and Fishes.
Despite the recent spike, it still exists only on the fringes of society.
• A pair of rockets fired from Gaza exploded near the border fence on Saturday night. According to the Jerusalem Post, they apparently landed in Gaza.
• The Globe & Mail‘s Patrick Martin suggests Israel deliberately destroyed a Gaza mosque for no good reason during last year’s war. Only the army can explain why it targeted the mosque (if in fact, it did so), and nothing in the article indicates Martin sought the IDF’s response. Instead we’re treated to speculative could’ve-should’ve talk.
It’s hard to understand why this old place was levelled. Israel didn’t need its strategic outlook – it has aerial balloons and drones with much better views of the area.
No tunnels would have emanated from this high ground, and any Hamas or other Palestinian forces there could have been defeated from the air without destroying the mosque and the large concrete water tower that also sat on the hilltop, bringing water to the community below.
Israel could have occupied the hilltop without destroying the mosque and it is not one of the religious sites claimed to be hiding Hamas rockets and other munitions.
The attack smacks more of punishment than of military necessity. And the imam and followers at Ali al-Muntar, who remember appreciatively how Israel safeguarded the place in the past, are at a loss to explain what they did to deserve this.
But if you want a better understanding of the war’s destruction, Victor Davis Hanson explains how the IDF borrowed a page from the Civil War and General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march to the sea.
• Congress held hearings on the boycott movement against Israel. Among the people testifying were SodaStream CEO Dan Birnbaum, and Professor Eugene Kontorovich.
• If Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow ever comes back to Israel, you can be sure customs officials at Ben Gurion Airport will give him extra attention.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking his battle against the Iran deal to social media. On Tuesday, (August, 4, at 1:00 pm EDT) Bibi will appear in a live webcast making remarks and fielding questions. Haaretz adds:
The hashtag #JFedTalk was picked to promote and discuss the prime minister’s objection of the deal on Twitter.
The live feed will be available on computers, mobile phones and synagogues across the U.S., AFP reported.
On the day after Bibi’s webast, President Obama will give a speech at American University plugging the accord.
• France’s national security adviser told Congress the US will get a better deal if lawmakers kill this accord. A senator who was briefed by Jacques Audibert told reporter Josh Rogin:
“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.” . . .
He told them that if U.S. sanctions were kept in place, it would effectively prevent the West from doing extensive business in Iran.
• Congress is feeling in the dark: The White House is raising questions by what portions of the deal it has selected to keep classified. And as for the side agreements between the IAEA and Iran, both Iran and the IAEA object to Congress having any access to it. John Kerry claims nobody in the Obama administration even knows the terms of the side agreement.
• Despite the nuclear deal, the Interpol arrest warrant against Iran’s former Defense Minister is “still valid” despite nuclear deal, an EU spokesperson said. Ahmad Vahidi is wanted for questioning by Argentinian investigators for his role in 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community headquarters, which killed 85 people.
• Iranian authorities demolished the only Sunni mosque Tehran.
Mideast Matters
• Advances by Islamic State are pushing Egypt and Jordan into “unprecedented levels of security cooperation” with Israel.
• Egypt inaugurated its expansion of the Suez Canal.
Around the World
• AP‘s quantification of French aliyah is fascinating:
The surge, which marked the first time in Israeli history that more than 1 percent of a Western country’s Jewish population immigrated in a single year, came even before the shooting rampage that killed four Jews in a Paris kosher supermarket in January and devastated the community’s already shaky sense of security.
• Robbers leave pro-Palestine expletive at French Jewish leader’s home after stealing $10,000 worth of jewelry.
Commentary/Analysis
• Writing in The Atlantic, David Graham unpacks the use of the word “terror” when the suspects are Israeli Jews:
The speed with which top Israeli officials labeled the attack “terrorism” presents an interesting contrast with the U.S., where questions about whether Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine black worshippers in Charleston, South Carolina, should be labeled terrorism (or perhaps a hate crime) consumed days of public discourse. (Incidentally, the U.S. also labeled Friday’s attack terrorism.)
• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend . . .
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas’s child abuse camps
– Ruth Wisse: Obama’s blind spot: accord will fuel anti-Semtisim (via Google News)
– Aaron David Miller: The “truth” about the Iran deal
– Michael Memoli: Obama’s Iran nuclear deal enters a danger zone
– Wall St. Journal: Iran’s closed covenants (staff-ed via Google News)
– Ron Ben-Yishai: How to stop Jewish jihad
– Charles Krauthammer: Syrian Christians and the English Jew
Featured image: Public domain image from flickr/The British Library with modifications by HonestReporting; Khamenei via YouTube/Khamenei.ir
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
