Today’s Top Stories
1. The “largest Mediterranean gas field” found off Egypt’s coast could meet the country’s natural gas needs for decades. The Zohr gas field‘s estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas is double the amount held in Israel’s Leviathan off shore field.
Zohr certainly shakes up Israeli plans. Haaretz notes that Egyptian purchases of Leviathan gas were supposed to fund the Israeli gas field’s development. And Israeli energy stocks plummeted.
2. An official Turkish delegation will visit Israel for the first time since the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident. According to Maan News, the Turks will discuss with Israeli officials the creation of a new Palestinian industrial zone in the West Bank, near Jenin.
3. Hezbollah is reportedly trying to recruit West Bank youth to carry out terror attacks against Israel. Judging from the Jerusalem Post, this is a bigger headache for the Palestinian Authority than for Israel — at least for now.
4. Activists Score Victory Against Radio New Zealand Bias: New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority rules against national radio station over inflammatory anti-Israel bias and charges of apartheid.
5. Lessons From a False-Photo Tweet: A Russian columnist misrepresents an Israeli photo. What lessons can we learn from this?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Turns out that Bassem Tamimi’s daughter bit that Israeli soldier for the cameras this weekend on the eve of his US speaking tour. According to William Jacobson:
As recently as a week ago Gold was still trying to drum up additional speaking locations and attendence for Tamimi. Those locations and larger audiences won’t be hard to find now.
• YNet: The largest supermarket chain in Luxembourg has stopped selling Israeli produce until its supplier verifies that the products don’t come from settlements. While caving in to BDS bullying, the officials at the Cactus chain showed where its true principles lie:
The chain’s management said income from Israeli produce is minimal and is not worth the annoyance to customers caused by protests.
However, the chain announced that it would continue to sell other Israeli products like SodaStream devices and equipment, which provide more significant profits.
• Transdev, a French public transport operator, sold its five percent stake in City Pass, the company that runs Jerusalem’s light rail. According to the Financial Times (click via Google News), the BDS movement is claiming victory, but Transdev officials ” insisted that its decision to sell its interest in the railway was purely strategic.”
• I like the intent of this Los Angeles Times headline. Unfortunately, it requires a little explaining. Rashomon is a 1950 film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa:
The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the same incident.
• Arab local councils set to strike beginning of school year
• Police discovered a tunnel in an elderly eastern Jerusalem woman’s yard. According to Reuters:
The 30 metre-deep hole had been dug in recent months by men posing as municipal workers sent to repair a water leak, Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
The woman’s yard abuts the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, home to antiquities including a 9,000-year-old statue from Jericho and Bronze Age gold jewellery, as well as a bank that was scheduled to open soon.
Mideast Matters
• President Obama discussed Israel, Iran and the Mideast with Jane Eisner of The Forward. Take your pick of Eisner’s article, or just the Q+A transcript.
• Egypt started a new digging project along its border to Gaza, apparently intending to flood smuggling tunnels. AP reports that the cost of smuggled goods has risen sharply and some tunnel operators are installing water pumps.
• Iran sentenced two people to a decade in prison for allegedly spying for Israel and the US. As for the separate trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Iran announced that a verdict was reached, without disclosing what the verdict is.
• Tehran is reportedly removing “death to America” graffiti from public places.
• Take it with a grain of salt, but Iranian media claims several Israeli and Jordanian army officers were killed in the Syrian village of Daraa. More at the Jerusalem Post.
• VICE News crew faces terror accusations in Turkey
Around the World
• For the approaching anniversary of Steven Sotloff’s murder by Islamic State, the American Jewish reporter’s parents opened up to the Miami Herald.
But that, he says, was Steven Sotloff, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, who often had to hide his Jewish identity as he traveled through some of the world’s harshest places.
“Whenever he went into a place … he was looking for the story of the people who were suffering there. He wasn’t reporting about anything else; he was reporting about the bread lines,” Arthur says from a small dining room table, tucked off the kitchen, and once the site of many conversations between father and son.
“A lot of correspondents couldn’t connect to people and he would sit with them, one on one, and they’d open up to him. He was very good at that,” Arthur says.
• Football match in Berlin ends in brawl amid anti-Semitic insults
• Holland‘s chief rabbi warned to avoid train travel
• An expert’s forecast — Canada will have few if any print newspapers by 2025
Commentary/Analysis
• Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Amb. Alan Baker assess the Iran deal’s major flaws and positive elements.
• Quite a bit of commentary on “Shirley Temper” and the Nabi Saleh incident you’ve probably seen photos of.
– Seth Frantzman: Nabi Saleh and Israel’s professional army problem
– Anshel Pfeffer: A picture of a headlock worth a thousand words
– Karni Eldad: A picture worth a thousand words
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Bassem Eid: BDS movement only harms the Palestinians
– Stephen Hoffman: Is the money we are giving Palestinian leaders helping?
– Melanie Phillips: Iran deal makes a terrible war inevitable
– Los Angeles Times: Weighing the Iran deal (staff-editorial)
Featured image: CC0 Thong Vo via Unsplash with additions by HonestReporting; Twitter CC BY flickr/elisa with additions by HonestReporting
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