Today’s Top Stories
1. Nice to see the wire services pick up on PA corruption. AP reports Palestinians are furious over the latest revelations of graft and misuse of public money:
Outrage over the documents quickly spread on social media, where Palestinians challenged everything from their leadership’s finances to its political legitimacy in the face of repeatedly delayed elections, last held in 2005.
2. Islamic State in the Sinai reportedly beheaded Croatian hostage Tomislav Salopek.
3. Larry Cohler-Esses of The Forward is the first journalist from an American Jewish paper to get a visa to report from Iran. He filed this dispatch.
During the course of my conversations with several senior ayatollahs and prominent political and government officials, it became clear that there is high-placed dissent to the official line against Israel. No one had anything warm to say about the Jewish state. But pressed as to whether it was Israel’s policies or its very existence to which they objected, several were adamant: It’s Israel’s policies. Others, notwithstanding their ideological objection to a Jewish state, made it clear they would accept a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians if the Palestinians were to negotiate one and approve it in a referendum . . .
Iran, though, is different from the Soviet Union in one key respect: In most countries, there is a social contract that governs relations between the government of a state and its people. But in Iran there are three players: the people, the government and, for lack of a better term, the Deep State, which in the person of the supreme leader claims to act on God’s behalf to ensure that neither of the other two parties strays beyond God’s boundaries as defined in Islam.
This makes things much more complicated.
4. Stories I’d Like to See: Where Do US Jews Stand on the Iran Deal? Like it or not, American Jews are part of the story now.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Times of Israel picks up on the latest BDS idiocy:
A Norwegian film festival recently rejected an Israeli documentary on disabled children, telling its director that it supports the boycott on the Jewish state and will not screen Israeli movies unless they deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Jeremy Corbyn, who is running for leadership for Britain’s Labor Party, is going to appear at a London conference later this month, sharing a stage with some notable anti-Semitic apologists for Hamas. The Daily Mail reports:
One speaker will be Palestinian-born Dr Azzam Tamimi, who once told the BBC that ‘sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause… I would do it if I had the opportunity’.
Another is Carlos Latuff, a cartoonist who compares Israel to the Nazis and came second in a Holocaust cartoon competition held by Iran in 2006.
• Irish president Michael Higgins is tangled up in another diplomatic tempest with Israel. Was his failure to hold a customary farewell meeting with Israel’s outgoing ambassador, Boaz Modai, a snub, or an unfortunate misunderstanding? Details at the Irish Independent.
• Khaled Mashaal is in Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Times of Israel coverage.
• The French telecomm giant, Orange, paid the first €15 million in compensation to Israel’s Partner Communications Ltd. The payment marks the beginning of the end of Orange’s ties to Israel after Orange CEO Stephane Richard kicked up a storm earlier this year when he said he’d rather not do business in Israel.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Iran debate devolves with charges of ‘dual loyalty’ and ‘dog whistles’
• John Kerry warns that that the US dollar will suffer if the Iran deal isn’t passed.
• John Kerry says no automatic return of sanctions if Iran breaks arms embargo
Mideast Matters
• Reuters: Russia, Saudis fail in talks to agree on fate of Syria’s Assad
• The Palestinians have offered to mediate a solution to the Syrian conflict, reports The Media Line.
Around the World
• The newly launched HuffPost Arabi is already under fire with its liberal readers for publishing succession of venomous posts criticizing gays, atheists, and selfies. The Independent picked up on the furor after Buzzfeed translated the offensive posts. Ariana Huffington doesn’t seem to realize that the Huffington Post Arabi’s editors have Muslim Brotherhood connections.
• Brian Williams’ six-month suspension (without pay) is over. NBC executives told CNNMoney that the disgraced anchor “will assume his new role as a breaking news anchor for MSNBC in mid-September, but no date has been set.”
The network moved against Williams amid revelations he exaggerated personal stories of his experiences covering the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006 and in Iraq. Lester Holt will continue anchoring NBC Nightly News.
Commentary/Analysis
• Jeffrey Goldberg‘s troubled by Obama and Kerry’s difficulty grasping Iran’s desire to eliminate Israel in recent interviews. After describing the President’s take, Goldberg explains his regret for not following up with a more incisive question bringing Hitler into the conversation:
I made a decision on the spot—later partially regretted—not to deploy the H-bomb just then because I am a) very mindful of Godwin’s Law; b) I don’t believe the Iranian regime is the modern-day equivalent of the Nazi regime, in part because the Nazi regime is without peer; and c) the invocation of Hitler’s name in these matters tends to set teeth too much on edge.
In retrospect, though, I should have raised it, because Hitler is the perfect, but not singular, example of a world leader who made decisions that seemed, to his adversaries, deeply irrational except if you understood his desire to wipe out the Jews of Europe as an actual overriding policy goal, a raison d’etre of his rule. Anti-Semitism was not simply an “organizing tool” for him. And if you’re paying attention, you will see that bringing about the end of the sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East is a paramount political and theological mission of the Iranian regime.
• Spare me your pompous pontificating and specious speculations, Thomas Friedman. You’re not an Israeli, and pigs don’t fly, so spare me your What ifs.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Israel dealing with two Hamas entities
– Eitan Haber: Israelis will pay the price for Obama-Netanyahu battle
– Ari Harow: Does the Iran deal serve Israeli interests?
– Ephraim Kam: Obama’s hollow arguments
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Max Talbot-Minkin with additions by HonestReporting; Shiraz CC BY-SA flickr/Fulvio Spada; US-Israel CC BY-SA HonestReporting;
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