Today’s Top Stories
1. Gaza’s bracing for a massive public sector strike on Thursday. Government ministries, schools, and other public institutions will be closed as workers demand unpaid salaries, protest wage cuts, and show solidarity with striking UNRWA teachers.
2. At the UN, the Palestinians are pushing for the flags of non-member states to be flown outside the world body’s New York headquarters. But Reuters reports the initiative took a hit when the Vatican, which is the only other non-member state, asked to be removed from the initiative.
AP notes that Pope Francis is due to address the opening of the UN General Assembly during a September visit to the US. Were the Palestinians trying to score political points on the pope’s coattails? If so, the Holy See didn’t want to play this political “flag football” game.
3. Israel released hundreds of African migrants from the Holot detention facility in the Negev. The migrants, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, have little money and few options. They’re barred from Tel Aviv and Eilat, where many of them already have relatives and where the most job opportunities are.
The release was in response to a recent High Court ruling. More on the most recent developments at The Media Line, Times of Israel and AFP.
4. Foreign Policy Rewrites Peace Process History: Magazine inaccurately states that the 1993 Oslo Accords committed Israel to a settlement freeze.
5. Watchdog of the Week: Hitting Back at Columnist’s “Hard Zionists” Charge: Find out why Lydia Rivlin, a former BBC employee, is our watchdog of the week.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The BDS impact on American universities is exaggerated, according to an Israel on Campus Coalition report (pdf) picked up by the Jerusalem Post.
• American Airlines denied Israeli media reports it cancelled its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route for political reasons. In an email to the JTA, the carrier said it lost $20 million on the route.
• British MP: Petition calling for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest absurd.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Times of Israel picked up on the latest Iranian smack talk.
Hussein Sheikholeslam, a foreign affairs adviser to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, told Iranian media that contrary to remarks by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, “Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.”
• While are sanctions are slated to remain on the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and its key figures, the organization is still poised to reap a nice financial windfall as the country opens to trade.
The Times of London reports that more than 200 non-blacklisted companies have board members and shareholders from the Revolutionary Guards.
An FDD analysis of the IRGC’s commercial interests reveals that 14 companies on the country’s stock exchange, with a combined value of more than $17 billion (£10.8 billion), have shareholders connected to or controlled by the group. Twelve have never been subject to sanctions. These include TCI and the Bahman Group, a vehicle maker. A further 217 non-public companies have former or present IRGC commanders in senior positions, the FDD said.
• i24 News looks at the US polling wars over the Iran deal.
• Will Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim lead the Berlin Philharmonic in Iran?
Mideast Matters
• Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp rocked by Islamist-Fatah battle
• Oh no, Daily Mail! Paper claims Lebanese reporter was attacked by a mob who ripped off her clothes during a live broadcast in Beirut. But the story doesn’t square with the reporter’s account or even the video. It’s not even close.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: The Daily Beast unpacks the controversy behind AP’s scoop on an IAEA side deal allowing Iranian self-inspections.
What this story is really about is the politicization of expertise, and how far things can go when one group of experts (arms controllers) decides to fight by impugning the expertise of another group (in this case, reporters) for the sake of public theater. This is almost entirely a phenomenon of new media and the speed of the news cycle in the modern era. The Iran Deal supporters knew there was no point in trying to rebut the substance of the claim: The story was out, people had already read it, and politicians had already reacted. A careful analysis of whether the document said what the AP headline said it did would take too long, and most people wouldn’t bother with it.
Instead, the story had to be discredited and flushed, as soon as possible. There wasn’t time to explain that “monitor” might mean different things to a lay reader and to an expert. Better simply to throw an array of charges at the Associated Press and its reporters and see what sticks . . .
The warning shot to other journalists is clear, however. Reporters with one of the most reputable news organizations in the world had to fight off odious charges for doing their job. This is apparently the price to be paid for reporting anything that challenges support for a deal that has reached, among its adherents, the status of a dogma that tolerates no heresy.
• Dennis Ross and David Petraeus weighed in at Washington Post on how to put teeth into the Iran deal.
• What a Jewish Journalist’s Visit to Soviet Russia Can Teach Us About Iran
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Raphael Ahren: Bibi’s Iran lobbying causing invisible, severe damage
– Benjamin Pogrund: Israeli policy is not apartheid
– Elliott Abrams: Did Abbas just resign?
– Pinhas Inbari: Abbas searches for legitimacy
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: Iran playing double game
– Wall St. Journal: Kerry’s invisible bridge (staff-ed via Google News)
– Daniel Finkelstein: Why does anti-Zionism become anti-Semitic?
– Owen Jones: Time for the left to confront anti-Semitism
– David Kenner: There’s something rotten in Lebanon
Featured image: CC BY-NC flickr/David Jones with additions by HonestReporting; flags CC BY-NC-ND flickr/United Nations Photo; money via FreeImages/Ariel Camilo;
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