Today’s Top Stories
1. In the face of condemnation from the Spanish government, the US embassy in Madrid, and the Spanish media, organizers of the Rototom Sunsplash music festival re-invited Matisyahu, the American Jewish reggae star dropped due to BDS pressure. Sunsplash officials wrote on the festival’s Facebook page:
Rototom Sunplash admits that it made a mistake, due to the boycott and the campaign of pressure, coercion and threats employed by the BDS País Valencià because it was perceived that the normal functioning of the festival could be threatened. All of which prevented the organization from reasoning clearly as to how to deal with the situation properly.
Related reading from HonestReporting: BDS May Regret Getting Matisyahu Banned From Festival.
2. It’s looking less likely that France will present a Mideast peace resolution to the UN Security Council; rather, according to the Jerusalem Post, Paris is weighing recognizing Palestine.
One senior Western diplomatic official told The Jerusalem Post recently that the French backtracked from their UN proposal after facing objections from both Israel, who objected to the idea of imposing a solution form the outside, and the Palestinians, because they were unhappy that the resolution did not give them everything they wanted.
Instead, he said, the French would likely offer a trade off: recognition now instead of the resolution.
3. Is the UN’s top nuclear watchdog, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, succumbing to what I’ll call “battered inspector syndrome?” Adam Kredo picked up on a report in Iran’s English-language Fars News Agency:
Amano was in Washington recently to brief members of Congress and others about the recently inked nuclear accord. However, he did not discuss the nature of side deals with Iran that the United States is not permitted to know about.
Iran apparently threatened Amano in a letter meant to ensure he did not reveal specific information about the nature of nuclear inspections going forward, according to Iranian AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi.
This disclosure has only boosted suspicions among some that the Iranians are willing and able to intimidate the top nuclear watchdog and potentially undermine the verification regime that Obama administration officials have dubbed a key component of the nuclear accord.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Reuters sums up the latest on the hunger-striking prisoner, Mohammed Allaan.
• Labor grievances at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have put on ice, for now, the ambassadorial appointments of Mark Regev, Fiamma Nirenstein, Danny Danon and Dani Dayan.
• So much for recent reports that Mahmoud Abbas is going to visit Iran.
Abbas not welcome in Tehran, Iranian official says
• Israel’s military intelligence is monitoring dozens of BDS groups around the world, Haaretz reports.
• Credit the Jerusalem Post with the lead of the day:
Hamas announced on Wednesday that underwater “frogmen” commandos operating just off the coast of the Gaza Strip managed to stop a dolphin that it claims was spying for Israel.
• In spat with former deputy, Mahmoud Abbas orders closure of a Palestinian NGO. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who was dismissed as PLO secretary general, also chairs the Palestine Peace Coalition. Details at Reuters.
• Tablet took notice of a very heart-warming valedictorian speech at Tel Aviv University’s graduation ceremony for international master’s students. Haisam Hassanein described how the reality of Israel didn’t match up with the stereotypes he grew up with in Egypt. Watch the video.
Mideast Matters
• Iran widened its media charm offensive by allowing the BBC to report from the country for the first time in several years. Tensions between Tehran and the Beeb were especially tense in 2009 when Iranians demonstrated against 2009 presidential election results. Iran jammed BBC broadcasts and eventually expelled correspondent Jon Leyne. This time around, the mullahs kept Kim Ghattas on a tight leash. The Guardian explains:
But arrangements for Ghattas’s trip reflected continuing Iranian sensitivities: she was apparently selected for the assignment because she is Dutch and not a UK national. It was also agreed that none of the material would be broadcast on the BBC Persian TV channel, which is extremely popular with ordinary Iranians but strongly disliked by the government.
• Moscow and Tehran reached an agreement on the purchase of S-300 long range surface-to-air missile systems. Delivery to take place later this year.
• In pictures: Hezbollah’s child soldiers
Evidence of Hezbollah sending children – defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as all people under 18 – to the frontlines of the war in Syria has mounted steadily.
• The US is reviewing the future of its Sinai peacekeeping contingent. According to AP, “Options range from beefing up their protection or even pulling them out altogether.”
Around the World
• A worker who hid from the Charlie Hebdo terrorists last January filed a lawsuit against several French TV stations, saying their live coverage of the police standoff with Cherif and Saïd Kouachi at a printing plant outside Paris endangered the lives of the workers. AFP adds that Lilian Lepere isn’t the only victim of the Paris terror taking legal action against the media:
Six shoppers at a Jewish supermarket that was targeted three days after the Charlie Hebdo killings by gunman Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people, complained in March that the media’s live coverage of the event had put their lives at risk.
The six, who were hidden in the supermarket’s walk-in freezer, are suing BFM TV for broadcasting the position of police around the supermarket, while also revealing that there may have been people hiding in the building that the gunman wasn’t aware of.
• Amnesty International defends senior official’s anti-Israel tweets.
Commentary/Analysis
• The situation of hunger-striking prisoner Mohammed Allaan is getting disproportionate media coverage. Reuven Berko wonders why:
The Arabic expression for “Tom, Dick or Harry” is “fallan.” Mohammad Allan, the hunger-striking Palestinian detainee, is one of those “fallan,” yet he has dominated Israeli news outlets. The coverage has turned him into a role model for every aspiring Islamist.
Why would anyone, anywhere, care about the wellbeing of some Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who recruited suicide bombers that were to detonate themselves in Israel? Why should his fate be the world’s concern when there are Islamic terrorists all over, while Bangkok is rocked by explosions, while Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons, and while thousands of African migrants are flooding into a bankrupt Europe overrun by Islam? . . .
Allan is not just some random detainee. The Shin Bet security agency had every right to seek his incarceration. His rap sheet at the agency was long and his desire to die, it seems, has been just part and parcel of his terrorist life.
• Do Britain’s Jews fear Jeremy Corbyn’s possible Labour leadership election victory?
• Lot of commentary on Matisyahu, mon:
– Jonathan Tobin: Matisyahu and the BDS anti-Semitism connection
– Wall St. Journal: That Anti-Israel Reggae Beat (staff-ed via Google News)
– Eli Hazan: The best defense is a good performance
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Khaled Abu Toameh: What are Palestinians doing with US money?
– Michael Freund: Why is the Red Cross holding seminars for Hamas?
– Yossi Beilin: Prepare for September 18
– Norman Bailey: Western collaborators are financing Islamic State
Featured image: CC BY-NC flickr/David Jones with additions by HonestReporting; Amano via YouTube/AP Archive; Paris via YouTube/ross4999; Matisyahu via YouTube/MatisyahuVEVO;
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