Today’s Top Stories
1. Was an Egyptian judoka really punished for refusing to shake his Israeli opponent’s hand? It depends on who you ask. On a related note, see HonestReporting’s latest post:
Olympic Bigotry: It’s All Israel’s Fault: Saying that Israelis should put up with what amounts to racist bigotry because “at least they’re not being killed” wouldn’t be acceptable to any other race, religion, or ethnicity facing similar narrow-minded behavior anywhere. Not at the Olympics, and not in the pages of The Economist.
2. Mainstream Turkish news services –a lot of them, in fact — have directly linked the recent coup attempt to the Jews and/or Israel. Jack Gozcu takes note.
3. The Christian Science Monitor takes a closer look at Hezbollah’s use of commercial aerial drones for both surveillance and attacking enemies in Syria.
There is no shortage of techniques that can be used to weaponize a mini-drone. They can be fitted with an automatic pistol fired by remote control, adapted to disperse radioactive material over a crowd, or used for swarming attacks – multiple drones carrying explosive charges sent into a crowded arena such as a football stadium.
“It is no longer a matter of if civilian drones will be used in a terrorist attack, but when,” says Abbott.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli-Turkish rapprochement is now officially on the Turkish parliament’s agenda. A vote approving the re-normalization deal is due tomorrow, Haaretz reports.
In a nutshell, the deal will annul Turkish legal claims against Israel stemming from the Mavi Marmara incident. Israel will pay $20 million to a humanitarian fund for the families of Turks killed and injured. Afterwards, the two countries will exchange ambassadors.
• Worth reading: The Los Angeles Times looks at the slow pace of Gaza reconstruction.
The biggest problem, according to the United Nations, is funding shortfalls. Only about 50% of promised donor aid – about 1.4 billion — was disbursed as of the end of March, according to the latest World Bank report. Among among large donors, the U.S. had transferred all of the $200 million it pledged, but Persian Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia had transferred only 15% or less of their pledges . . .
Gazans blame everyone for the bleak state of affairs: the Israeli military, which keeps the territory under a strict blockade; Arab governments, which have not sent pledged aid on time; and even their own leaders.
In private conversations in cafes and on social media, Gazans say they’re anxious that Hamas’ effort to rebuild its cross-border attack tunnels will one day bring new Israeli destruction to border areas like Shajaiya. They also gripe that the Gaza government has prioritized rebuilding homes of Hamas insiders and mosques.
“There’s great corruption in the reconstruction,’’ said Nawati. “Why is my house not there, I haven’t gotten a clear answer.”
• If you’re looking for a little human interest from Israel’s sports scene, The Guardian republished Shaul Adar’s emotional story about HaPoel Beer Sheva winning Israel’s national soccer championship for the first time in 40 years.
• Gaza schools are closed for summer break, so what exactly is AFP’s Joe Dyke insinuating with this tweet?
Children outside their @WorldVision funded school in #Gaza, closed after funds suspended over corruption allegations pic.twitter.com/evqdsNHqsm
— Joe (@joedyke) August 16, 2016
Around the World
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill banning the state’s $72 billion pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel. Holdings in companies that refuse to do business with Israel will be divested in 18 months.
The Garden State’s the latest in a string of states enacting such anti-BDS legislation over the last few months.
• Hundreds of Ukrainian Jews are looking into moving to Israel as tensions with Russia rise.
• A confidential German document leaked to the Associated Press labels Turkey as the Mideast’s “central platform of action for Islamist groups.”
In it, the ministry said “numerous statements of solidarity and supportive actions” for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and “groups in the armed Islamist opposition in Syria” by Turkey’s governing party and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “underline their ideological affinity with the Muslim Brothers.”
More on the story at YNet.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yoav Limor: Hezbollah’s shadow war in the West Bank
– David Rosenberg: What the Olympics say about Arab racism
– Ben Rosen: Should sportsmanship transcend nationalism?
– Gal Perl Finkel: The IDF vs. subterranean warfare
– Gilad Sharon: Better to be leopards than goats
– Assaf Orion: UNIFIL II, ten years on: Strong force, weak mandate
– Eli Lake: A Soros plan, a marginalized Israel
– Jeffrey Salkin: Jews to blacks: thank you
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see the latest from Saeb Erekat and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah.
Featured image: CC BY-NC Herr Olsen via flickr with additions by HonestReporting
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