Today’s Top Stories
1. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has suggested that the task of defeating the Islamic State could fall to Iran and the Syrian government if the U.S. was “failing miserably” in its efforts to defeat the jihadists. Coverage of this in the Daily Telegraph includes this exchange between Marco Rubio and Kerry during a hearing of the Senate’s foreign relations committee.
If this sounds unpalatable, at least Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has pledged Israeli help in the battle against Islamic State.
In related news, the Christian Science Monitor examines Hezbollah’s dilemma now that it has a shared interest with the U.S. in defeating the Islamic State.
Meanwhile, the New York Times asks what are the options for the U.S. and its allies if they are to bomb Islamic State targets in Syria within the confines of international law:
In principle, the Security Council could authorize military action, though the chances of that seem slim at the moment. Russia, which has veto power, has staunchly backed the Assad government.
Western diplomats cited the precedent of Kosovo, where NATO airstrikes came before Security Council authorization. That could happen here, too, they said.
Helping an ally defend itself could be offered as a rationale, though the legal basis for targeting insurgents who have fled across the border is not so clear cut. The United States has in the past faced the same quandary when it comes to targeting militants who moved across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
And the French contribution? Calling ISIS by a name that the terror group doesn’t like:
“This is a terrorist group and not a state,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters last week, according to France 24. “I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it ‘Daesh’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats.’ ”
2. Australia has carried out its biggest ever anti-terror raids following intelligence reports that Islamic State extremists had called for “demonstration killings,” reportedly including a public beheading.
3. What are peacekeepers for if they need the protection of one of the sides they are supposed to be keeping the peace for? The collapse of the peace forces on the Syrian border herald a new era, according to the AP.
With Syria in tatters, UNDOF’s viability is now in question.
“Their mandate is just not relevant anymore,” said Stephane Cohen, a former Israeli military liaison officer with UNDOF. “They are there to oversee an agreement between two countries — Israel and Syria — and in practice there is no Syria anymore.”
4. Peter Beinart: I Disagree with the Goals of BDS: The noted Liberal Zionist thinker and author examines the true goals of BDS.
5. Slideshare: Top Five Media Fails, Gaza Conflict Edition: If you haven’t seen it yet, here are the biggest media fails of Operation Protective Edge, and what they mean going forward.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The fallout from the Unit 8200 refuseniks hits the New York Times opinion section, combined with revelations that Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was passing massive amounts of data to Israel.
Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.”
It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses. In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media, they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.
• Gaza’s surviving zoo animals have been traumatized by the recent conflict according to this Reuters report.
• Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk has said that indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas will resume within a week.
• Interior Minister and rising Likud star Gideon Sa’ar announced his surprise resignation from politics in order to focus on his family. Sa’ar had been considered favorite to eventually succeed Benjamin Netanyahu as Likud chairman. His relinquishing of his cabinet position after the Jewish High Holidays will leave Likud as the second largest party in the Knesset.
Media Angles
• Andrew Masterson examines the doubtful application of social media concepts to traditional journalism in the Sydney Morning Herald:
“I think it’s important to distinguish between a citizen source and a citizen journalist,” says Kate Ames, senior lecturer in professional communication at Central Queensland University. “A citizen source is essentially someone who’s borne witness to an event and sends out images, tweets and so on into the public sphere. Those images and messages are then used by traditional journalists to verify events.
“Citizen journalists are people who are actively working to change public opinion. They have a more political bent. It’s a lot like public relations, and often in the activist space. A lot of the material coming out during the uprisings in the Middle East fits this idea.”
This amounts to a significant issue, not simply a challenge by nimble-footed amateurs to the lumbering behemoths of mainstream news publishing. And the issue is this: truth is important.
Commentary/Analysis
• Colin Rubenstein casts his eye on the upcoming Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Yet there is no doubt that the suffering of Gazans,and Israelis, in the recent conflict was very real. However, as Bassem Eid suggested above, to prevent a similar war the international community must find a way to help Gazans rebuild their destroyed homes and infrastructure and to gradually open Gaza’s border – without rewarding Hamas. Above all, reconstruction of Gaza must proceed in tandem with demilitarisation.
Hamas will not agree, but both Israel and the current Egyptian regime, which shares Israel’s enmity for Hamas, will be determined to do whatever is necessary. So will Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, as he has repeatedly made clear.
What is now needed is similar determination, over an extended period, from the international community to institute arrangements to carefully screen all cargo and travellers entering Gaza to prevent the introduction of weapons or terrorists and monitoring of all construction material entering to prevent Hamas control.
Such arrangements are essential to avert more deaths in a further round of Gaza conflict, and to undermine the rejectionist Hamas’ continuing efforts to destroy any prospect of a viable two-state peace, the only hope for a lasting resolution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Lee Smith asks in Tablet magazine how the New York Times missed its own scoop:
Martin Indyk, the man who ran John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, whose failure in turn set off this summer’s bloody Gaza War, cashed a $14.8 million check from Qatar. Yes, you heard that right: In his capacity as vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the prestigious Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk took an enormous sum of money from a foreign government that, in addition to its well-documented role as a funder of Sunni terror outfits throughout the Middle East, is the main patron of Hamas—which happens to be the mortal enemy of both the State of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.
Image: CC BY-NC flickr/hjl
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