Today’s Top Stories
1. HaPoel Beer Sheva lost to Celtic 5-2 in the Champions League qualifying round last night, but things were ugly around Glasgow’s Celtic Park before the match. Israel HaYom reports that police had to escort Israelis to their seats after they were attacked by Celtic fans.
Celtic may face sanctions from the Union of European Football Associations; UEFA rules prohibit political expressions at games and fans were requested not to bring Palestinian flags, but the pitch might have resembled Ramallah’s Al-Bireh Stadium.
Celtic could face sanctions after fans waved Palestinian flags https://t.co/6xkG4eAozR pic.twitter.com/NB4dlLdaOH
— SBS News (@SBSNews) August 18, 2016
2. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is holding its general conference next month. It’s normally a venue for resolutions demanding oversight of Israel’s nuclear facilities, but a diplomatic cable seen by Haaretz suggests this year might be different.
Arab League members will apparently not raise the oversight issue, but Israeli officials are concerned about a different tactic:
Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission also fears that the Arab states will try to start a debate on the safety of Israel’s nuclear facilities — not on the production of weapons of mass destruction — during the conference, on the assumption that there is an international consensus on the issue of nuclear safety.
UPDATE: After this roundup was published, Haaretz subsequently reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the story by barring its diplomats in Israel and abroad from having contacts with Israeli reporters.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Germany’s state-run broadcaster peddles anti-Israel water libel as news. Vijeta Uniyal fact-checked ARD’s report and found it woefully wanting.
A video report titled “Dry Faucets in West Bank” was broadcasted on Germany’s most watched news show. The video clip accused Israel of ‘rationing the water supply’ of the Palestinian and diverting water resources to the neighbouring ‘Israeli settlements’.
Related reading: “Water Apartheid” Was Really Just a Burst Pipe, But the Media Don’t Care
4. I think Simone Biles and Aly Raisman have to be blushing at Newsweek’s verbal gymnastics. Reporter Jack Moore says Hamas is a designated “extremist” group.
Israel and the Palestinians
• YNet takes a look at the complicated issue of Susya. It’s tangle of legalities, bureaucracy, and diplomacy.
The High Court of Justice ordered illegal structures in Susya to be demolished two years ago. The Court then requested the state’s position on the issue. However, due to international pressure, the state has yet to take a stance.
The village of Susya is a Bedouin village built without permits in the Israeli controlled Area C of the West Bank. The international community has been putting pressure on the Israeli leadership to not destroy the illegal structures for years, saying that it would make 300 people homeless, and endanger the two state solution. The European Union has built structures on the land for the Palestinians without obtaining building permits from the Israeli government.
• Israeli security forces seized weapons and thousands of shekels in a counter-terror sweep in the northern West Bank.
• British parliamentarians are getting trained in krav maga, a self defense system developed by the IDF, and UK papers are showing interest. Here’s what The Guardian, and Evening Standard, among others had to say.
Around the World
• This is one sick, anti-Semitic magazine cover from Venezuela’s Las Verdades de Miguel. The Times of Israel explains what you’re looking at:
The image emblazoned on the magazine’s cover featured a picture of an ultra-Orthodox Jew with a Star of David made of dollar bills, with the headline “The Rabbis of Cadivi” — referring to Venezuela’s government body which deals with currency exchange.
• A Florida state senator raised Jewish community ire for visiting the West Bank “as the guest of a group that backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.” The JTA explains:
Organizers of the protest against Dwight Bullard said they object to the groups and people he met while visiting the region in May under the aegis of a Miami-based civil rights group, Dream Defenders. His delegation met with a founder of the anti-Israel BDS movement and were led by a tour guide identified with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a State Department-designated terrorist group . . .
State legislators routinely travel to Israel and the West Bank under the aegis of pro-Israel groups, and some also go on trips hosted by pro-Palestinian groups, albeit ones that endorse a two-state solution and do not take a position on BDS.
• Egypt suspended eight news anchorwomen for being fat, telling them to lose their weight or or lose their jobs. While some Egyptian pundits were quoted by the New York Times praising the move, press-freedom activists say the move isn’t really about making the news more attractive. I’ll give Danielle Cahill-Gray last word on the matter.
Maybe Egyptians are more interested in the content of TV news rather than the weight of female newsreaders – https://t.co/K116AYOIMx
— Danielle Cahill-Gray (@dmcahill) August 18, 2016
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– William Jacobson: Still searching for boycott of Turkish academia, finding only hypocrisy
– Dr. Haim Shine: Abbas’ channel has been closed for years
– Peter Wertheim and Ron Finkel: Mohammad Halabi and the international aid dilemma
– Khaled Abu Toameh: “No room for the Zionist entity in the region”
– Eitan Haber: Keeping your finger in the dyke and on the pulse
– Dr. Norman Bailey: Israel’s Kurdish conundrum
– Yaroslav Trofimov: Hezbollah’s Syria gambit strains local allegiances (click via Google News)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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