Today’s Top Stories
1. UN peacekeepers monitoring the Israeli-Syrian border withdrew from their positions on the Syrian side, evacuating to Israel. Does the inability of the blue-helmet forces to work both sides of the border essentially spell the end of their mission? CNN coverage.
2. UN envoy Robert Serry threw a lifeline to Hamas:
UN: Palestinian unity government crucial for Gaza recovery
3. Turkey’s willing to host seven senior Muslim Brotherhood officials recently kicked out of Qatar, according to Turkish media reports. Hamas says Khaled Mashaal won’t be expelled (Qatar reportedly threatened to oust him during Operation Protective Edge).
4. Slideshare: Top 5 Media Fails, Gaza Conflict Edition: The Gaza conflict highlighted a number of severe limitations of traditional journalism. Five media fails stand out in particular.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Jordan will issue temporary passports to Israeli Arab pilgrims traveling to Mecca in October. i24 News explains that “reports that the Saudi Arabian government would allow Arabs with Israeli passports to enter its territory as long as they were issued in a consulate abroad were denied by Riyadh.”
• As a result of the summer’s Gaza crisis, the World Bank forecasts the Palestinian economy to shrink seven percent, with the Gaza economy expected to contract by 15 percent. AP picked up on the World Bank’s findings.
• Islamic State jihadis shot down a Syrian war plane flying over the Islamist-controlled Raqqa province. AFP says its the first Syrian aircraft downed since the Bashar Assad regime first launched air strikes on ISIS positions this summer.
• Around the world: Scottish independence leader equates Israel and ISIS. Concerned about a Russian backlash, Israeli diplomats reportedly nixed a drone sale to Ukraine. Arson suspected in Brussels synagogue fire. Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Israeli show in Amsterdam.
• In the middle of a Harvard Medical School podcast, Sumner Slavin, an associate clinical professor of surgery, described what happened after a 10 year old Palestinian kid tried to throw a grenade at Israeli soldiers. Elder of Ziyon uploaded the key one-minute snippet to YouTube. Slavin described it as a “not unusual event.” What does this says about child fatalities of the last Gaza war?
Commentary/Analysis
• The Daily Spartan was on hand as Aryeh Green discussed media coverage of Operation Protective Edge to a packed room of students at San Jose St. University. Green is the director of MediaCentral, a Jerusalem-based initiative of HonestReporting that facilitates the work of foreign journalists in Israel.
• IDF warnings about Hezbollah shouldn’t be dismissed as mere spin maneuvers. Amos Harel explains why.
• Former Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Samih Khalidi argues that if the West really wants to crush ISIS, it should cut a deal with Bashar Assad.
• Will Hamas salary crisis lead to renewed rockets from Gaza?
• For more commentary/analysis, see Efraim Halevy (on West Bank support for Hamas), Amos Yadlin (The case for unilateral withdrawal), Richard Cohen (A misreading of Henry Kissinger on Israel), and Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy (Road to peace for Israel surrounded by extremist factions). Last but not least, a Wall St. Journal staff-ed (via Google News) praises Angela Merkel for confronting anti-Semitism.
Image: CC BY flickr/Markus Spiske
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