Today’s Top Stories
1. Judoka Or Sasson won a bronze medal, Israel’s second in the Rio games. The victory was soured somewhat by politics when, earlier in the day, Egyptian opponent Islam El Shehaby refused to make a customary handshake after losing to Sasson. The International Olympic Committee told TMZ it is officially investigating the matter. Sasson said Muslim athletes frequently snub Israelis.
By the way, Sasson’s the first athlete from Jerusalem to win an Olympic medal, explaining Mayor Nir Barkat‘s exuberance.
Congratulations to Ori Sasson, #bronze #judo winner in #rio2016. You make #Jerusalem proud! pic.twitter.com/vsbNASpkbd
— Archive:Mayor Nir Barkat (@ArchiveNir) August 15, 2016
2. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson took a free trip to the West Bank before likening Jewish settlers to termites.
The trip was organized and paid for MIFTAH. That’s a Ramallah-based organization which, in its own words, seeks to “disseminate the Palestinian narrative,” and “influence policy and legislation.”
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Police and Palestinians scuffled on the Temple Mount as Jews flocked to the Western Wall for Tisha B’Av. Police expelled a number of Jews from the Temple Mount itself for praying, a violation of the status-quo.
4. HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz was invited by the i24 News show, FaceOff for a spirited discussion on recent developments with Iran and also the BDS with Mideast expert Meir Javedanfar. Watch the video.
FaceOff – 08/13/2016 by i24news-en
Israel and the Palestinians
• A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier near the northern West Bank settlement of Shaked on Sunday evening.
• UN says Gaza employee arrested by Israel diverted rubble on PA instructions:
UNDP said that after reviewing Bossh’s charge sheet — which was made public on Tuesday — it had “established that the rubble in question was transported to its destination according to written instructions from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing of the Palestinian Authority as to where it should be placed.”
• Newly discovered documents refute Palestinian lies about Temple Mount.
• The Times of Israel picked up on Jordan’s King Abdullah’s latest comments about the Temple Mount status-quo.
• France slammed Israel for demolishing several illegal structures near Hebron funded by the European Union. As the Daily Mail reported in the past, EU funding for illegal West Bank building projects violates international law.
• The Media Line takes a closer look at the glacial pace of Gaza reconstruction.
• Methinks the Saudi media is thawing towards Israel.
• NPR’s Emily Harris takes a rare look at the numbers of Israelis and Palestinians injured over the past several years. Due credit for the balance shown in her main article and sidebar. I wonder, however, if she makes clear enough the context that the vast majority of the Palestinians were injured by Israelis defending themselves.
• A Lebanese Olympic official is singing a different tune about another snub. At the beginning of the games, Lebanese Olympic officials were reprimanded for refusing to let Israeli athletes board a bus.
Francois Charbel Saade, one of the heads of the Lebanese Olympic delegation, spoke to Israel Hayom correspondent Mickey Sagui and claimed that the story had been blown out of proportion and that the bus had simply been too full to accommodate the Israeli athletes.
• Worth reading: A rising number of Israeli Arabs are joining national service. They get similar benefits as soldiers, such as health care, educational grants, and employment opportunities, but they often fear the reaction from other Arabs. The Times of Israel coverage.
• I wonder how many marriages will go up in smoke before Hamas and Fatah find a way to weasel out of municipal elections we all know they’d rather cancel. Tweet of the day goes to Khaled Abu Toameh.
A Fatah guy calls on his colleagues to divorce their wives if they don't vote for Fatah in local election. https://t.co/Ibm0gUGRht
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) August 13, 2016
Around the World
• The latest from the North American campus battles:
For the first time, a Jewish or pro-Israel organization is taking legal action against the faculty and student associations of a Canadian university.
On August 3, Hasbara Fellowships Canada filed a formal complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, where it accused the student and faculty associations of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and Durham College of discriminating against Jewish students and Israel, following the banning of Hasbara Fellowships Canada from participating in a student association-sponsored “Social Justice Week” five months ago.
• New offices in Chile and Peru cement Israeli trade alliances
• The final AMIA bombing victim in Buenos Aires was identified 22 years after attack. Augusto Daniel Jesus, who was 20-years-old, was identified based on DNA evidence. JTA coverage.
• Was Israel’s 972 country code removed from the phone list of a Berlin 5-star luxury hotel?
• Pentagon: Iran has been improving its cyber abilities since the nuclear deal.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Ira Rifkin follows up on on how the media covered World Vision’s difficult week and warning signs that were missed.
• Why is Israel the only victim of Olympic politics? Why does everyone shake hands with Bashar Assad’s Syrian athletes? Seth Frantzman‘s wondering. See also Smadar Perry.
• Over at the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News), David Feith has a bone to pick with US government’s “willful blindness” towards American taxpayer money being used for Palestinian terror stipends.
No U.S. official can plead ignorance. Palestinian law has sanctioned these payments since at least 2004, specifying how much money is earned depending on the circumstances of the attacker and the body count. A Palestinian from Israel with a wife and children who kills many people and dies in the act, or is captured and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, earns the most. Single, childless attackers from the West Bank or Gaza earn less. The incentives are clear.
Palestinian leaders once tried to obscure their payments by characterizing them as “assistance” rather than “salaries.” They also shifted nominal responsibility from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which takes donations from foreign governments, to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which doesn’t. But this was a sham, as both bodies are run by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Gil Troy: Be ready to defend Israel on campus
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: Vote for us or burn in hell
– Jonathan Tobin: Where Palestinian aid really goes
– Alex Ryvchin: Balfour notes
– Moshe Arens: Palestinians can thank Israel for skirting the Arab catastrophe
– Lorrie Goldstein: How to spot a Jew-hater
– Judith Bergman: Why are Jews not ‘radicalized?’
– Yossi Melman: The truth about Hezbollah
– Matthew Levitt: Iran and Hezbollah remain hyperactive in Latin America
Featured image: CC BY-NC Ben Rea with additions by HonestReporting; Dome of the Rock CC BY-NC Steve Evans; money CC BY-ND Paul Domenick;
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