Today’s Top Stories
1. The PA wants Israel to allow Palestinian refugees fleeing Islamic State to obtain asylum in the West Bank and Gaza but Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel is unable to absorb refugees from Syria or Africa. Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin called Abbas’s suggestion, an “attempt to bring the ‘right of return’ through the back door.” More on the debate at the Times of Israel.
Regarding the Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria, the PA and Hamas have some ‘splaining to do: Both reportedly refused to accept refugees in 2013 for a combination of financial and ideological reasons (fears that absorbing refugees would prejudice the “right” of return). If the PA was earnest about resettling Palestinian refugees, it could have, say, earmarked housing in Rawabi years ago. The first Palestinians began moving into the new West Bank city near Ramallah just a few days ago.
2. A Palestinian saved five American yeshiva students from lynching in Hebron on Thursday night. En route to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the group took a wrong turn. YNet writes:
A local resident, Fayez Abu Hamdia, sheltered the five in his home until they were evacuated by IDF troops who arrived in the area.
“I’m not a hero,” Abu Hamdia told Ynet. “I did what needed to be done.”
3. The former number two man at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Olli Heinonen, told the Times of Israel that the nuclear watchdog’s side deal with Iran for monitoring Parchin was flawed.
“The key question is: will the IAEA be present during the sample-taking or not?” Heinonen wondered. “It looks to me that they might be witnessing the sample-taking through some camera view, or from a distance. If that’s really the case I have a lot of reservations about the reasonability and credibility of the arrangements.”
Heinonen — who worked for the IAEA for nearly three decades and headed the agency’s Department of Safeguards — explained that taking samples at a site suspected of having hosted illicit nuclear activity is no simple feat.
“You need to know what you sample, how you sample, and if the sample is representative of the object you sample,” he said. It’s difficult to assess changes that might have been done to the facility — such as the installation of false walls or efforts to hide or sanitize equipment — by merely looking at photo or video material. “You need to be present and see physically the place. Therefore, for the IAEA to do a credible job they need to get to that chamber and take independently their samples.”
4. Don’t Concede the Campus Battleground to BDS: A special guest post written by Elijah Granet, HonestReporting’s Blankfeld Award winner for 2014-15.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel arrested a Gazan Islamic State-affiliated operative at the Erez crossing. According to the Jerusalem Post, Ihab Abu Nahal, who participated in several attacks on Israeli soldiers during Operation Protective Edge, was trying to make his way to Qatar.
• One day after its opening, the Cardiff Council cancelled a photo exhibit of Jews, Muslims, and Christians playing soccer, simply because the photos were taken in Israel. Wales hosts Israel in a Euro 2016 qualifying match tonight.
‘Our libraries are buildings which promote free speech, but it was felt that running this exhibition could lead visitors to suppose that the Council was displaying bias.’
• Israel to face armed terror drones in future wars.
• Rebel Media interviewed Professor Ben-Dror Yemini about the BDS movement. The video also features acerbic criticisms of the boycott movement by Professor Norman Finkelstein.
• Hamas and other Palestinian factions are calling for a boycott of the Palestinian National Council. They say Mahmoud Abbas is using the confab to tighten his grip on power. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• British Labor Party front-runner Jeremy Corbyn got an endorsement from Hamas in exclusive comments to the Daily Telegraph.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Mordechai Vanunu — the Dimona technician who spilled nuclear secrets to the British media in 1986 and served 18 years in prison — told Israel’s Channel 2 that Israel’s nuclear program poses a danger to the world:
Vanunu, a Jewish convert to Christianity, argues that by refusing international inspections at Dimona, Israel inflames regional tensions and risks a “second Holocaust.”
He has also said the Jewish state has no right to exist, and there has been little public sympathy for him in Israel.
• PBS ombudsman Michael Getler gave a thumbs down to a tweet by PBS NewsHour co-anchor Gwen Ifill:
One would have to lean way over backwards to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was simply shedding light on the administration’s view of portions of Netanyahu’s arguments. But to personalize it by saying, “Take that, Bibi” is, in my book, inexcusable for an experienced journalist who is the co-anchor of a nightly news program watched by millions of people over the course of any week.
Around the World
• You don’t suppose hostile European media coverage of Israel has anything to do with this? American political strategist Stanley Greenberg has now advised French Jews not to use the word “Zionism” when talking to non-Jews. The JTA got a look at Greenberg’s 17-page recommendation.
Zionism is seen as an “extremist movement that is uncompromising and aggressively pursues its goals.” . . .
“All the sectors — Muslims, highly-educated, far-right and far-left voters – they all said the same: Zionism is to Jews what jihadism is to Muslims,” he said. “It indicates it is very difficult to use the word ‘Zionist,’ in the definition we have of it, in popular discourse.”
• San Francisco school district partners with anti-Israel hate group
• Pentagon says 6 peacekeepers injured in Sinai explosions
• A prominent Syrian Druze cleric known for his opposition to the Assad regime was assassinated. Earlier this summer, Sheik Wahid Balous had called on Druze not to serve in the Syrian army. He was also critical of Islamic State. More on the fallout at AP.
• Canadian billionaire sues Haaretz for libel; wins first court battle
• Scottish MP Paul Monaghan deleted and apologized for an anti-Semitic tweet after being challenged by the Jewish Chronicle. Screen grab via the JC.
Commentary/Analysis
• As Congress deliberates on the Iran deal, Michael Oren asks lawmakers “How would you vote if your children’s lives were at stake?”
• Worth reading: Howard Jacobson and Nathaniel Tapley weigh in on the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and his relationship to anti-Semitic streams of British politics.
• Anti-Israel boycotts haven’t changed Israel’s politics, but they’ve supercharged its music scene
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Abdullah Swalha: Israel through the looking glass of the Arab world
– Elliott Abrams: UNRWA again: UN employees incite hatred
– Aaron David Miller: Surviving Congress is easy part of the Iran deal
– Toby Greene: Iran’s undimmed passion for annihilating Israel
– Burak Bekdil: NATO allies making it easier for Iran to attack Israel?
– Colbert King: Collateral damage from the Iran nuclear deal
– Roger Cohen: Iran: The ‘Obamacare of foreign policy’
– Wall St. Journal staff-ed: Khamenei, the democrat (click via Google News)
Featured image: CC0 BarnImages/Roman Drits with additions by HonestReporting
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