Today’s Top Stories
1. Three telling reactions to the Barcelona attack in which a van plowed through people in the Las Ramblas pedestrian mall, killing 13. First, the city’s chief rabbi says his community is doomed. Rabbi Meir Bar-Hen told the JTA he has encouraged Jews to leave and accused Spanish officials of not understanding the threat of Islamic terror.
Second, Catalonia’s BDS branch says European governments are responsible for last week’s terror attack in Barcelona.
Third, Hezbollah’s response suggests it’s only jihad when Israelis are targeted, right?
2. Rasmea Odeh lost her US citizenship and will be deported for lying about her 1970 conviction for her role in a pair of Jerusalem bombings.
Rasmea Odeh was interrupted three times by a judge as she used her court appearance in Detroit to criticize Israel and the United States and deny that she’s a terrorist.
“This is not a political forum for you to fan the flames of Israeli-Palestinian disputes. … It’s about the application you filled out,” said U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain, who threatened to find her in contempt and send her to jail.
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3. There’s good reason to be concerned about the relationship between BDS and the rising Antifa movement. (Antifa is a collection of far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events. The name is portmanteau of “anti-fascist.) According to Inside Higher Ed and Legal Insurrection, BDS professors are helping organize an Antifa campus network.
Antifa will give BDS even more muscle to intimidate and threaten those who oppose the BDS agenda.
More on background on the Antifa at the JTA. Last word for now goes to Canadian columnist Lorrie Goldstein.
Anyone who compares Antifa 2 Allied soldiers fighting Nazis overlooks fact that the only Jews Antifa tolerates are the ones who hate Israel.
— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) August 20, 2017
Israel and the Palestinians
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to discuss Israeli concerns about Iranian entrenchment in Syria. More at the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel.
• A 17-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed while trying to stab a Border Policeman at a checkpoint at the Tapuah Junction on Saturday night.
Mideast Matters
• In a special report, Reuters examines how Syria managed to continue gassing its own people while the world looked on. Among the key points:
– “Syria’s declarations about the types and quantities of chemicals it possessed do not match evidence on the ground uncovered by inspectors.”
– Inspectors don’t accept as credible Syrian claims about the amounts of certain key chemicals the regime said were only used for research.
– At least 2,000 chemical bomb shells declared by Syria remain unaccounted for.
– “In Damascus, witnesses with knowledge of the chemical weapons program were instructed by Syrian military officials to alter their statements midway through interviews with inspectors, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.”
• Clashes kill two in Palestinian Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon.
Around the World
• Charlottesville says it provided protection to synagogue, refuting an initial account.
• A Berlin university has filed a criminal complaint against BDS activists who disrupted speeches by an Israeli MK and and a Holocaust survivor.
• Arab bands boycott Berlin pop festival because of Israel.
• The Australian ABC News aired a map of the Mideast that didn’t include Israel. The Daily Mail picked up after Aussie activist Avi Yemini called out the network.
• Winnipeg mayor denounces anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on on benches and sidewalks.
• Police in Alameda Calif. are investigating synagogue vandalism as a hate crime. Oakland’s KTVU notes:
Whether the vandalism was inspired by recent events in Charlottesville, VA, no one can say. But the current surge in intolerance seems unmistakable.
• London’s Sunday Times gauged reactions to the Dublin city council decision to fly a Palestinian flag over city hall for a full month — against the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Many Irish people took issue with a foreign flag being raised, particularly given the country’s neutrality.
• These two UK surveys are polls apart.
– 1 in 3 British Jews have considered emigrating due to anti-Semitism
– 88 percent of British Jews have not considered leaving UK
Commentary/Analysis
• Mohamed Fahmy, one of three Al Jazeera reporters previously jailed by Egypt, explains how the network supported the Muslim Brotherhood — in breach of a secret Saudi-Qatari agreement:
In Egypt’s prisons I interviewed Brotherhood members and non-journalists of the opposition who told me Al Jazeera had supplied them with transmission equipment, cameras and money, a technique I later learned the network applied in conflict zones such as Syria, Libya and Iraq . . .
“This gave Al Jazeera an advantage over their competitors as they were essentially recruiting protesters and fighters to become journalists and information gatherers for their news programming. And since the Syrian opposition (particularly those aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups) was ideologically harmonized with the Qatari policy in the Levantine country, the coverage often went straight to air without verification, clarification, or corroboration.
• Over at the Washington Post, Dana El Kurd, who is clearly no friend of Israel, examines what made Palestinian protests in East Jerusalem last month so successful. Spoiler alert: It’s because Israel allows Palestinians to demonstrate against Israel, unlike the PA, which doesn’t let Palestinians demonstrate against the PA.
My findings also help explain why the Jerusalem protests were effective: East Jerusalem, despite having been occupied in 1967 like the rest of the Palestinian territories, is unique in its lack of PA institutions. Palestinians there do not face an added layer of repression from an indigenous regime.
And although the occupation is repressive, how people react to an externally imposed force differs from how they react to their own leadership. While the occupation can spur rebellion, the PA’s direct repression in the areas it governs exacerbates polarization and affects the ability of different groups to coordinate.
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing on Charlottesville:
– Mirah Curzer: Does your progressivism include Jews?
– Micah Lakin Avni: Mark Zuckerberg: Hamas are ok, neo-Nazis are not
– Daniel Gordis: Watching Charlottesville from Jerusalem
– Marc Goldberg: Stop blaming Israel for Nazis in Charlottesville!
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Raed Salah exploiting Islam
– Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi: Hamas is restoring its alliance with Iran
– Charles Bybelezer: The next war with Hamas: If not now, when?
– Herb Keinon: Unraveling Cape Verde’s flip-flop on Israel
– Hen Mazzig and Emily Schrader: Well-intentioned anti-Semitism
– Dore Gold: A warning on Iran-North Korea missile cooperation
Featured image: CC BY Jon S; Fahmy CC BY Chatham House;
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