Today’s Top Stories
1. Hezbollah’s taking up positions across from Israel, and according to Arab reports, they’re doing so in the guise local militiamen. Might this explain why Hezbollah supports the US-Russian ceasefire. There goes the neighborhood . . .
2. More than 60 members of the European Parliament are pushing soccer’s world governing body, FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), to ban five Israeli teams based in West Bank settlements. AFP writes:
The five teams are Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel, Kiryat Arba, Bikat Hayarden and Givat Zeev.
FIFA is expected to discuss the issue at its October 13-14 council meeting, Smith said.
The MEPs cited UEFA’s 2014 decision to ban Crimean football clubs from taking part in Russian competitions as a precedent for barring the settlement teams.
3. Suspected snub of Israel at Paralympics has Algeria facing a possible expulsion:
An Algerian women’s goalball team could be expelled from the Paralympics for failing to show up for two matches, triggering speculation the absence was an effort to avoid a next-round draw against Israel.
IPC officials said the absence could be a form of political protest, which is banned in the Paralympics as it is in the Olympics.
Goalball, a sport designed for blind people, is played in teams of three with a ball embedded with bells.
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4. Supporting Terror in the Pages of Newsweek: Daniel Levy misled audiences about the nature of Hamas.
5. Newsweek Middle East’s Anti-Semitic Senior Deputy Editor: Magazine’s Middle East senior deputy editor Leila Hatoum is exposed as an anti-Semite on her Twitter feed.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Jerusalem Post reports that some “40 trade unions, environmental groups and human rights networks are demanding that the European Commission withdraw its support from an Israeli-run water conference slated to take place in Italy at the end of September.”
• The State Dept. condemned a YouTube video posted by the Prime Minister’s Office in which Benjamin Netanyahu says PA demands that no Jews live in a future Palestinian state amounts to “ethnic cleansing.”
• Gazans were quite open with the Washington Post about their disappointment with Palestinian elections being suspended.
Hamas keeps a tight rein on media in Gaza. Foreign journalists are peppered with questions at the border by Hamas security officers. Last week, Hamas detained a Palestinian investigative reporter, Mohammad Othman, for 24 hours.
The group Human Rights Watch last month charged that Hamas and Fatah are harassing and arresting journalists and activists who criticize authorities.
Yet the prospect of elections appeared to have opened the tap for criticism a bit, especially online but even on the streets.
• World Vision, the Christian aid group whose operations manager was charged with diverting money to Hamas, has laid off 120 contractors. The Seattle-area-based non-governmental organization said an Israeli freeze on its bank accounts made it impossible to transfer money to the Strip.
• Rescue workers at the collapsed Tel Aviv parking garage recovered a sixth body from the wreckage.
• On a lighter, satirical note:
BBC Looking For More Negative Angle On Israel’s Treatment Of Wounded Syrians
• The Israeli military expects Islamic State attack on its southern border ‘within six months.’ Quite a few papers picked up on an IDF’s officer’s comments to the Daily Telegraph.
Wilayat Sinai, the jihadist group’s affiliate in the Sinai desert, has been stealing armored vehicles and anti-tank missiles from Egypt’s military and Israeli expects the weapons will soon be turned against its forces on the Egyptian border.
The Israeli officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Telegraph that Wilayat Sinai had stolen at least one Egyptian M60 battle tank and had amassed a supply of Russian-made Kornet missiles, which can strike targets more than three miles away.
Around the World
• French police discovered a booby-trapped car containing gas cylinders parked outside a Marseilles synagogue.
• War on Want chief quits amid claims of anti-Semitism.
• Hitler costume approved by Alice Springs teacher for Book Week as Jewish students on visit to school
• Stoking more criticism of Labour Party anti-Semitism, Jeremy Corbyn turned down a visit to Israel’s Holocaust museum, and will send another party official in his place. More at The Guardian.
Commentary/Analysis
• 9/11’s on my mind. Jeffrey Salkin strikes a chord sharing what he calls 9/11’s “holiest stories.” See also Clifford May weighing on how the world has changed, and Joe Lieberman (Wall St. Journal via Google News) urging the world to remember Iran’s ties to the attacks.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Dr. Eyal Zisser: The Syria deal: A bridge to nowhwere
– Avi Issacharoff: Fatah stood to make strong showing in Gaza
– Ben Lynfield: PA elections: A fresh blow to Abbas
– Jonathan Schanzer & Grant Rumley: The fragile state of the PA (via Google News)
– Herb Keinon: About Russia, not peace
– Bradley Klapper: Russian Mideast push could hurt US influence, if talks occur
– Jonathan Tobin: Does Abbas’s KGB past matter?
– Jonathan Adelman & Asaf Romirowsky: The role of foreign powers in Israel’s creation
– Dave Rich: Anti-Semitism and the British Left
– Joshua Simons: Why Jews in Labour place little trust in Jeremy Corbyn
Am sure this writer will be dismissed as a Blairite/Tory etc, but it's tricky: he was a policy adviser to Corbyn https://t.co/IMTGmtM3RE
— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) September 11, 2016
– Saurav Dutt: How the Left is propagating anti-Semitism without knowing it
– Norman Bailey: Israel’s public diplomacy still sells it short
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: The last acceptable hatred
Featured image: CC BY-SA Piotr Jankowski with additions by HonestReporting; soccer CC BY Feans;
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