Today’s Top Stories
1. Nabil Shaath to Bloomberg News: The PLO wants the UN to replace the US as the main mediator of the Mideast peace talks. But Haaretz predicts the Palestinian statehood push will go nowhere because the Arabs are more concerned with beating back Islamic extremism.
Both Hamas and Fatah understand that at this stage the most they can achieve is funding for rebuilding Gaza – and only if they can overcome their internal Palestinian conflicts. Abbas’ diplomatic initiative will now have to wait as far as the Arab nations are concerned; the war against the Islamic State comes first.
2. The family of slain reporter Steven Sotloff told CNN‘s Anderson Cooper they believe he was sold by moderate Syrian rebels to ISIS.
3. The New York Times took a closer look at international governments funding US think-tanks. And it’s already creating a backlash in Israel.
More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.
What does this thought-tanking mean for Israel? According to the Jerusalem Post:
Israeli government officials on Sunday questioned the impartiality of the prestigious Brookings Institution, the past and present employer of former US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk, following a New York Times report Sunday revealing that Qatar is a major contributor to that think tank.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Looks like a US miscommunication with Israel led to a breakdown of a Gaza truce last month. According to Israeli media reports,
[T]he Americans mistakenly led Israel to believe that Hamas accepted an unconditional 72-hour cease-fire when in fact the Palestinian Islamist group never gave its consent to a key Israeli demand that it refrain from attacking troops already on the ground in Gaza.
The consequences?
Ninety minutes into the cease-fire, two IDF infantrymen were killed by Hamas operatives in an ambush near Rafah as they were searching for underground tunnels. In the attack, Hamas terrorists ran off with the body of Sec.-Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was later declared killed in action.
• Your daily dose of peevish Palestinian petulance:
• Western diplomat to Reuters: Israel’s sharing useful intelligence on ISIS with the West.
• Some 40,000 Palestinians have permits to work in Israel and in settlements, and an estimated 30,000 more work without permits. The Media Line talked to a few to find out why:
“No one ever questioned my working in a settlement because everyone knows the money is better on the Israeli side,” Elian, a resident of Al Azaria told The Media Line.
• Fear and loathing mar Fatah-Hamas ties in Gaza
From people on the streets to senior officials, no one allied with Fatah will agree to speak on the record, fearing the consequences after 300 of their number were placed under house arrest by Hamas.
Dozens who failed to respect the order were shot and wounded, among them Abu Jihad.
• Around the world: Yale University chaplain who blamed anti-Semitism on Israel resigned. Cardiff‘s deputy lord mayor, Ali Ahmed, is facing calls to resign after saying Hamas fired “toy rockets” at Israel. Israeli diplomat arrested in Argentina.
• Norway’s foreign minister visited Israel and Gaza, becoming the first foreign diplomat to come to the region since Operation Protective Edge ended two weeks ago. According to the Jerusalem Post:
Diplomatic officials said that Brende’s Gaza visit was coordinated with Israel, and that Jerusalem had no problem with the trip since it was designed to prepare for the donor’s conference. By contrast, last week Israel denied a request by a Spanish-based left wing European delegation that would have included a few European Parliament members, because of a concern this would have been used for Hamas’s propaganda purposes.
• If you’re looking for a front-row seat on the Israeli side of the border to watch the fighting in Syria, Haaretz says the three most popular spots are the “Quneitra Overlook” near Kibbutz Ein Zivan, the more well-known Har Bental Overlook, and the Oz 77 Military Outpost near Kibbutz El-Rom.
Commentary/Analysis
• Mehdi Hasan is fed up with the Arab penchant for conspiracy theories:
Where will it end? When will credulous Muslims stop leaning on the conspiracy crutch? We blame sinister outside powers for all our problems – extremism, despotism, corruption and the rest – and paint ourselves as helpless victims rather than independent agents. After all, why take responsibility for our actions when it’s far easier to point the finger at the CIA/Mossad/the Jews/the Hindus/fill-in-your-villain-of-choice?
• In the Boston Globe, former US envoy George Mitchell wraps up his three-part series of commentaries on the Mideast peace process.
• Everything You Know About Israeli Settlements is Wrong
• Jeremy Ben-Ami urges the US to take a tougher stance on Israeli settlements in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Asa Kasher (The ethics of Protective Edge), Khaled Abu Toameh (Hamas: Give us the West Bank so we can destroy Israel), and Amir Taheri (Hamas and the delusion of victory).
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Edward Cotton, Har Bental via Flickr/Alex Jilitsky
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