Today’s Top Stories
1. Looks like there are some Iranian fingerprints on the recent Temple Mount violence. MKs are demanding an investigation
Picking up on Arab media reports, Israel HaYom writes:
According to the Palestinian sources, tens of thousands of Muslim protesters received prepackaged meals along with notes in each one citing a famous quote attributed to 1979 Iranian Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “With the help of Allah, Palestine will be liberated! Jerusalem is ours.” The note also depicted the Dome of the Rock and the Palestinian flag.
According to reports in the Palestinian media, a nongovernmental organization run by Iranian youth movements was in charge of distributing the meals. Arabic news sites affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps also pointed to Iranian NGOs as being behind the “supply of food to the heroes fighting for the liberation of the besieged Al-Aqsa mosque until victory is achieved over the Zionist occupier.”
Despite those reports, a senior official in the Palestinian security forces told Israel Hayom that such a large logistical effort could not have been single-handedly managed and funded by a youth movement.
2. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate is under a lot of scrutiny surrounding the sale of some of its extensive properties. Articles listed in chronological order based on Times of Israel time stamps so you can follow the bouncing ball.
– 1,500 Jerusalem homeowners up in arms over secret sale of church land
– Palestinians demand Patriarch’s ouster over Jerusalem land sales
– Ancient Roman Amphitheater in Caesarea sold by Greek Orthodox church to mystery foreign buyer
– Greek Orthodox Church sold land near iconic Jaffa clock tower — report
– Church land sales to anonymous buyers set homeowners on edge
– Amid outcry, Church defends its sales of land in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Caesarea
– In landmark ruling, court sides with right-wing Jewish group in Old City church property dispute
– After court loss, church vows fight over Old City hotels will go on
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. The Sunday Times of London fired Kevin Myers, the Irish journalist who penned an anti-Semitic, misogynistic article published (and then removed) from the British paper. The paper is also investigating how the column came to be published in the first place.
Seth Frantzman and Joshua Zitser uncover plenty of skeletons of Holocaust denial and misogyny in Myers’ closet that were well known to Myers’ editors.
https://twitter.com/henrymance/status/891628287625220096
4. Tisha B’Av: Yes, Jews Were Here First: Tisha B’Av and Zionism are two sides of the same coin — ancient dispersal and modern return, tragedy and renewal, longing and home.
Israel and the Palestinians
• It’s too early to say what this means for Jared Kushner’s Mideast efforts, but the President’s son in law was recorded telling White House interns the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “isn’t solvable.” You can read the transcript or listen to the recording at Wired and draw your own conclusions:
So, what do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know … I’m sure everyone that’s tried this has been unique in some ways, but again we’re trying to follow very logically. We’re thinking about what the right end state is, and we’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there’s a solution. And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on.
• Police arrest 33 suspected of instigating Temple Mount riots.
• In record, over 1,300 Jews visited the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av to commemorate the destroyed Temples.
• Israel planted spying devices at Al-Aqsa, ex-mufti claims in new libel
• A Times of Israel Persian blogger faces deportation from Turkey, fears being sent back to Iran, where she would likely be executed. An online petition launched by UNWatch fills in some more details, while Israel HaYom explains that Neda Amin fled Iran in 2014 over a book she wrote on womens’ oppression.
“People who said they work for the Turkish intelligence organization called me on the phone five or six times one-and-a-half years ago. Then they interrogated me at a foreigners’ branch directorate. They kept asking me why I wrote for an Israeli newspaper and with whom I have connections in Israel. Although I repeatedly said I am only a journalist, they accused me of being a spy for Israel,” she was quoted as saying by Israel National News.
Dear @RefugeesChief, will you allow registered refugee Neda Amin to be deported to Iran, where she faces execution? https://t.co/4jqgLYTsCP
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) July 28, 2017
• Mahmoud Abbas launched talks with Hamas. Negotiations are reportedly focused on Hamas “dismantling its governing structures in Gaza” and publicly scrapping its arrangement with Abbas rival Mohammed Dahlan, while the PA would “restore electricity supplies and allow Gazan banks to trade in foreign currency again.”
• Senior Hamas officials meet with Iranian official in Beirut. More on the story at Ynet and Times of Israel coverage.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is seeking a lung transplant in Israel or the US. Ynet explains:
Erekat’s temporary replacement has been announced as Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj.
Erekat, 62, suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, which is characterized by the development of scars in lung tissue which makes it difficult for them to function properly. The disease manifests itself in shortness of breath, coughing and loss of the ability of the lungs to transfer oxygen to the body. He was diagnosed more than a year ago.
• Palestinian fires pistol in Jenin hospital, demanding care in Israel. Times of Israel coverage.
• The PA and Morocco are pressuring African leaders to boycott a summit of African and Israeli leaders due to held in Togo at the end of October. According to the Jerusalem Post, disproportionate media interest in Israel is exactly what Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé is counting on:
Gnassingbé is intent on holding the meeting regardless of any political risk involved, the official said. One of the main reasons is that it will add to his and Togo’s prestige.
“If you hold an Africa-Africa summit, nobody cares, including the international media,” the official said. “Nobody will write or publish anything because you have some kind of African summit almost every day. But if you do something with Israel, you will get some kind of coverage – either positive or negative – because Israel is involved. Since the summit is taking place in Togo, people will talk about the president and his country, and they will see him as an actor on the international stage.”
The source said that the media coverage expected from the summit is almost as important for Togo as the summit itself. The added value, he said, is there is also good chance that some of the more than 130 Israeli companies that will be present at the summit will chose to do business in the country.
• Might this have something to do with Amnesty’s Israeli tax exempt status, which is now under threat?
• In Hebron, troops arrest parents who stashed bullets in kids’ rooms.
• There’s no doubt that Yosef, Chaya and Elad Salomon were murdered in their Halamish home by a Palestinian terrorist. And it’s well-documented that their murderer, Omar el-Abed posted on Facebook his plans to kill Jews. So why on earth does CBC News hedge, qualifying this basic information as “according to Israeli authorities.”
Four Palestinians died in clashes with the Israeli security forces, while three members of an Israeli family were, according to Israeli authorities, stabbed to death by an attacker who wrote on Facebook he was acting to protect the al-Aqsa mosque.
Strange, but the CBC ran with AP coverage of the attack. (The unholy headline might be deja vu.)
• A Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli in a supermarket in the central Israeli town of Yavne. According to Ynet, the attacker a 19-year-old employee of the supermarket was apprehended by civilians. The attack was caught on security video.
• Palestinian man confesses to murdering pregnant Israeli girlfriend
Around the World
• A group of students at Fordham U. are suing the New York school over its refusal to allow Students for Justice in Palestine to register as a club. Dean of Students Keith Eldredge overturned a decision by the student government allowing SJP.
• North Carolina governor signs anti-BDS legislation.
• Munich is due to become the first German city to pass legislation banning BDS and labeling it as anti-Semitic.
• Israeli theater group heads back to Edinburgh three years after being evicted by protesters.
• An Austrian court sentenced a Hamas operative to life in prison “for conspiring and inciting others to carry out terror attacks in Jerusalem.”
Commentary/Analysis
• Over at the New York Times, Nathan Thrall and Robert Blecher hope to head off war in Gaza by cementing its separation from the West Bank. Is a three-state solution only politically incorrect when suggested by Israelis? And would it really make it easier for Israel to negotiate peace with the Palestinians?
First, Israel — which refuses to engage with any Hamas-led government — could transfer tax revenues on Gaza-bound goods to the people of Gaza, either through an internationally supervised trust or by using the tax revenues to pay for increased electricity. Second, Egypt could export more goods to Gaza, thereby reducing the amount taxed by Israel and increasing the amount taxed directly by Gaza’s government. Third, Hamas could allow the formation of a new administrative body in Gaza, led by a non-Hamas figure, in which case Israel and the international community could engage with it directly to improve life in Gaza and establish a long-term cease-fire.
• Some people support or excuse anti-Semitism due to Israel’s policies because they want to use anti-Semitism to motivate opposition to Israel’s policies, argues Seth Frantzman.
• Plenty of Temple Mount commentary:
– Smadar Perry: Jordanians waiting for Netanyahu to apologize
– Mordechai Kedar: Israel vs. Jordan: Why Israel needs to be tougher
– Bassam Tawil: “The battle over Jerusalem has just begun”
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: The Temple Mount’s perilous situation
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Casey Babb: Canadian tax dollars shouldn’t subsidize Palestinian terrorists
– Dr. Moshe Elad: The day after Abbas
– Caroline Overington: Israel losing the public relations war against Palestinians
– Elliott Abrams: The next Israel-Hezbollah conflict
– Mark Dubowitz and Mike Gallagher: Averting a third Lebanon war (click via Twitter)
– Miriam Elman: Boycotters, if the goal of your visits is to harm Israel, stay home.
– Amb. Alan Baker: The Jews: One of the world’s oldest indigenous peoples
– Sara Yael Hirschhorn: Israel doesn’t cause anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites do
– Daniel Sugarman: It’s not just extremists who believe anti-Semitic trope that Jews are good with money
– Mark Thomas: Unending conflict wipes future away for Israelis, Palestinians
– A. Z. Mohamed: The State Department’s report on terrorism should be discredited
Featured image: CC BY Thomas Leuthard; fingerprint Pixabay; Kushner CC BY Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Erekat via YouTube/Al Jazeera English; quill CC0 Pixabay/Ashreila;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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