Today’s Top Stories
Ties between Washington and Ramallah hit a new low. It all began when the Palestinian Authority filed a war crimes complaint against Israel over plans to raze the illegally built West Bank Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar. The US retaliated by ordering the Palestinians to close their quasi-embassy mission in Washington. In the background of all that is a $25 million cut in aid for Palestinian-run hospitals in eastern Jerusalem.
Today’s top three stories highlight how we got here.
1. The Palestinian Authority is filing a claim of war crimes against Israel at the International Criminal Court in the Hague over Israeli plans to raze the illegally built West Bank Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar. Last week, Israel’s High Court of Justice gave the state a green light to demolish the village, saying the 180 Bedouins living there failed to prove they owned the land. Khan al-Ahmar’s Bedouin leader threatened violence if authorities carried out any attempt to dismantle their structures.
The demolition could theoretically begin as early as today.
The PA called on the ICC to investigate what it called Israeli war crimes, specifically what chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called “the crimes of forcible displacement, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of civilian property.” European leaders urged Israel not to demolish the village, and the European Parliament is due to discuss a resolution on Khan al-Ahmar tomorrow.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Washington wouldn’t allow the ICC to curtail Israeli self-defense.
2. The US ordered the closure of the Palestinian mission in Washington, saying the PA leadership was no longer supporting peace efforts. Reports said the Palestinians were given one month to pack up and shut down the office. The Jerusalem Post explains:
The fate of the Georgetown offices has been in limbo for over a year, ever since the administration discovered it was congressionally obligated to close the diplomatic facility should Palestinian officials target Israel at the International Criminal Court. Palestinian Authority officials have said they plan on doing just that in the coming weeks.
According to Haaretz the mission’s closure is more symbolic and will have little practical effect:
The main PR efforts have been made by senior officials like Saeb Erekat, Hanan Ashrawi and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. PR efforts have also been in the hands of the Palestinian mission at the United Nations.
3. The US cut some $20 million in aid to a network of six eastern Jerusalem hospitals serving the Palestinians. The cuts are tied to the Taylor Force Act, which proposes the US pressure the PA to end its terror stipends by cutting aid funding. But Haaretz notes that the Taylor Force Act “included a special and specific exclusion for these hospitals, which was initiated by congress after some of the powerful Christian organizations supporting these hospitals had lobbied. The lobbying effort, however, did not influence the Trump administration’s budget cuts.”
AP and the Washington Post tied all the stories together.
4. Surf’s Up in Gaza: Riding the Anti-Israel Wave: Every activity in Gaza, even leisure, is turned into an opportunity to attack Israel and spread inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel and the Mideast
• Members of several Syrian rebel groups told Foreign Policy that Israel provided them with weapons and salaries to keep militias allied with Iran and Islamic State away from the border. The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Haaretz all picked up on the FP scoop.
The military transfers, which ended in July of this year, included assault rifles, machine guns, mortar launchers and transport vehicles . . .
The payments, along with the service Israel was getting in return, created an expectation among the rebels that Israel would intercede if troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad tried to advance on southern Syria.
When regime forces backed by Russian air power did precisely that this past summer, Israel did not intervene, leaving the rebel groups feeling betrayed.
• A Palestinian school funded by Belgium is no longer named for mass-murderer Dalal Mughrabi. But the Hebron area school is keeping its logo erasing Israel.
• Haaretz: Police arrested three Palestinians accused of starting a fire yesterday that destroyed 500 dunams (125 acres) of vegetation at the Einot Tsukim nature reserve near the Dead Sea.
• EU spokesman upholds Israel’s nation state law.
• Palestinian terrorist sentenced to 35 years behind bars for two attempted murders.
• The BDS movement is claiming victory after some 20 indie performers backed out of scheduled appearances at Israel’s Meteor Festival at Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan. AP takes a closer look.
Window Into Israel
• Haaretz reports that the police investigation of the “Bezeq affair” is raising new suspicions of fraud against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara.
Police are investigating whether the PM had an understanding with Shaul Elovitch, Bezeq’s majority shareholder, in which Netanyahu gave the telecom giant regulatory benefits in exchange for favorable coverage on the Elovitch-owned Walla! News site.
This is the first time Mrs. Netanyahu was linked to the Bezeq affair. In June, Mrs. Netanyahu was indicted on separate charges of misusing state funds. Her trial begins on October 7.
• Israel’s fiscal deficit reaches 2.5% of GDP.
• Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes is in the spotlight after being accused of sexually assaulting socialist New York state Senate candidate Julia Salazar and Wall St. Journal reporter Shayndi Raice several years ago. Salazar tweeted the accusation ahead of a report in the Daily Caller. Raice, in tweets one, two and three described “a terrible encounter” with Keyes before he worked with the prime minster. Keyes denied the allegations in a statement to Associated Press. More at Jezebel.
• Police in Afula are investigating after racist graffiti was sprayed on the home of a former IDF Israeli-Arab soldier.
• The Guardian takes a closer look at Israeli haredim moving into the workplace. It’s through the story of Yehuda Sabiner, who the paper says “will be the first person born and raised in a Haredi community in Israel to become a mainstream doctor.”
Around the World
• Drip drip drip: Iran’s Press TV managed to livestream a Labour meeting where pro-Israel lawmaker Joan Ryan lost a confidence vote. The Daily Telegraph reported that Press TV journalist Robert Carter is alleged to have used his Labour membership card to infiltrate and film the vote. Ryan is chair of the Labour Friends of Israel parliamentary caucus.
As a local party member, Mr Carter would have also been able to cast a ballot in the vote, which Ms Ryan lost 94-92, although it is unclear whether he did.
Explaining the vote’s significance, the Times of London wrote:
The votes have no official standing but raise the prospect of local members forcing trigger ballots in which Ms Ryan and Mr Shuker could be deselected. The Enfield North footage was carried on the station’s Twitter feed, even though the meeting was not open to the press.
• Drip drip drip: In an interview with the Daily Mail, the former chief of Britain’s official anti-racism watchdog branded Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour leadership as antisemitic and racist.
[Trevor] Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: ‘It doesn’t help that one of our great parties, the one I belong to, is led by anti-Semites and racists who basically want to eliminate anyone who disagrees with them.’
• Drip drip drip: Momentum, a pro-Corbyn an organization, sparked new furor by inviting a British-Polish woman with an unusual background in Israel-bashing to speak at its upcoming “Corbyn Festival.” The Times of London fills us in on Ewa Jasiewicz:
In 2002 she called for “activists” to “do” the Israeli parliament or “a sophisticated politician bump-off” rather than targeting Israeli civilians. At the time Ms Jasiewicz was living in Jenin, in the West Bank.
The Times of London separately reported that in 2010, Jasiewicz and a former Israeli Air Force pilot vandalized one of the remaining walls of the Warsaw ghetto in 2010 by spray painting the words, “Liberate all ghettos” and “Free Gaza and Palestine.” The Daily Mail unearthed Corbyn’s 2009 comments praising Jasiewicz.
To those Corbynistas trying to claim the ghetto wall which Ewa Jasiewicz defaced had other graffiti on it, here's a picture of the wall. The Hebrew weiting's hers, too. pic.twitter.com/DDDnU1mE02
— Andrew Gilligan (@mragilligan) September 9, 2018
• Drip drip drip: Jeremy Corbyn’s office of personally intervening in the disciplinary process of several party big shots being investigated for antisemtism. That’s according to Peter Mason, a member of the party’s most senior disciplinary body. The Times of London reports that Mason’s discussion with the Jewish Labour Movement was recorded and leaked:
Mason, who is a Labour councillor in the London borough of Ealing, claims thousands of anti-semitism complaints have been received by the party and they will take months, if not years, to resolve because the party’s ruling national executive committee is so “politically fractious and divided”.
• Drip drip drip: It turns out Labour’s shadow Chancellor John McDonnell handed out boycott flyers in the name of ‘peace’ in 2014, trying to get grocers in his Hayes and Harlington constituency to stop stocking Israeli produce, More on that at the Daily Mail.
• Drip drip drip: Corbyn stuns by blasting Hungarian PM for antisemitism.
•The attempted murder of Brazil’s pro-Israel presidential frontrunner candidate Jair Bolsonaro is now pitting the country’s Jews vs. Arabs. The JTA explains:
The fact that Bolsonaro, who recently announced that he will move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, refused treatment at an Arab hospital commonly chosen by the country’s most senior pols fueled rivalry that made headlines and led to conspiracy theories in social media.
Bolsonaro, sometimes referred to as “Brazil’s Trump,” was stabbed at a campaign rally last week in an attack caught on video.
• Per the JTA: “A Swedish court of appeals overturned a deportation order against a Palestinian man who firebombed a synagogue, saying he’d be in danger from Israel because of his crime if sent to the Palestinian Authority.”
• Antisemitism in Argentina rose 14 percent, with online hate accounting for most of the incidents.
• Accused of anti-Semitism, hating Israel, and befriending terrorist groups – Corbyn would fit right in at the UN
The US Dept. of Education reopened a probe of antisemitism allegations at Rutgers U.
Commentary
• Officially defining Jews as an ethnicity could complicate efforts to track antisemitism. Here’s why.
• I’m scratching my head at the juxtaposition of these two headlines in today’s Haaretz’s opinion section. The first is a staff-ed, the second is a column by Gideon Levy. Draw your own conclusions.
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing in on UK Labour’s antisemitism problem:
– Howard Jacobson: Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism
– Ron Prosor: Accused of anti-Semitism, hating Israel, and befriending terrorist groups – Corbyn would fit right in at the UN
– Robert Philpot: Corbyn loathes Israel, and Labour’s new anti-Semitism rules won’t change that
– Rosie DiManno: Jeremy Corbyn and the dark shadows behind Britain’s left
– Daily Telegraph (staff-ed): Labour’s nightmare has no end in sight
– Melanie Phillips: Why Jews find themselves in the eye of the storm
– Alex Benjamin: About Corbyn
– Rachel Shabi: The left must restore the ties between antisemitism and other racism
– Andrew Roberts: If Churchill were alive today he’d realise the true irony – and the horror – of Labour’s anti-Semitism
– Nick Miller: More ‘prejudice in general’: creeping anti-Semitism stalks Europe
• Here’s what else I’m reading . . .
– Max Boot: Trump’s bear hug risks crushing Israel
– Amnon Lord: Diplomatic retribution at last
– Wall Street Journal (staff-ed) Shutting down the PLO (click via Twitter)
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: Spitting in the well
– Los Angeles Times (staff-ed): Trump’s latest step backward: shutting down the PLO’s Washington office
– Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury: Israel displays more respect for the civil rights of its Muslim citizens than they receive in Saudi Arabia
– Amos Yadlin: Israel’s war between wars
– Hillel Frisch: Why Hamas escalated its war — and why it’s winning
– Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi (Ret.): Those who seek peace should be willing to destroy its obstacles
– Alex Joffe, Asaf Romirowsky: Palestinians, you don’t have to live like a refugee (click via Twitter)
– Michal Hatuel-Radoshitzky, Kobi Michael: Defunding UNRWA: Opportunity or threat?
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Gwynne Dyer‘s take on defunding UNRWA.
Featured image: CC0 geralt; Augusta Victoria via YouTube/Guy Mador; Bolsonaro via YouTube/Philipe Loureiro;
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