Today’s Top Stories
1. The Palestinians are trying to expel Magen David Adom from the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The reason? Ambulances operating in the West Bank using a Jewish star emblem — rather than a neutral diamond shape — supposedly violate Geneva convention protocols.
2. The BBC apologized for using an anti-Semitic caricature to illustrate a program for the BBC Proms, a series concerts and other events. The caricature was of Leopold Auer (1845-1930), a Hungarian Jewish violinist, conductor, and composer.
3. Violence in eastern Jerusalem continued over the weekend. YNet rounded up the incidents. The Temple Mount facet to the clashes is straining Israel-Jordan ties. Meanwhile, Israeli officials accuse Turkey of complicity in the latest round of Jerusalem and Temple Mount unrest. The Jerusalem Post explains:
Channel 2 cited Israeli officials as blaming Turkey for housing senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, and allowing him to continue to operate under the auspices of the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
According to the officials, Arouri is responsible for remotely organizing terrorist attacks, and funding Hamas’s part in inciting Palestinian youth to take to the streets and throw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israelis.
The report cited the unnamed Israeli officials as placing the onus on the government in Ankara for permitting the Hamas operative to funnel copious amounts of funds from Turkey to the Palestinian territories and Hamas dealings, such as their armed wing the Izz a-din al-Kassam.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Whoda thought? Syrian refugees are fleeing to Gaza. Many have difficulties, especially since they don’t qualify for UNRWA assistance. But if Syrians are making their way to the “world’s largest open air prison,” what does that say about Syria, or the Turkish refugee camps? The International Business Times reports:
Other Syrians have quickly got established in Gaza, setting up businesses and starting families. Wafeef, 35, had a horrific ordeal in Turkish refugee camps before getting to Gaza, where he has now set up his own fast-food restaurant – the Syriana – and married a local woman, Maha.
“I went to Egypt running from the disaster of life in Turkish refugee camps. I spent 44 hours on a death march, the first seven months was fine then the situation for Syrians became hard by the way we were treated, as part of the policy from the Turkish government,” he said.
“A friend told me that he could find a better life in Gaza.”
• Worth reading: YNet‘s Nahum Barnea visits the Temple Mount, where he has enlightening conversations with a sheikh and a police commander.
• I’m glad to see AFP provide some figures on the number of Jews who visited the Temple Mount, giving the controversy a little more perspective.
About 10,900 Jews visited the flashpoint hilltop in 2014, according to Arnon Segal, an activist for the right of Jews to pray where their biblical temples are said to have stood.
In contrast, as many as nearly three million Muslims and 200,000 Christians go there each year, according to official Israeli data.
The number of Jewish visitors last year was double the figure of 2009, says Segal.
• Palestinian police were caught on film beating a Palestinian kid near Rachel’s tomb near Bethlehem. Adding to the controversy: 17-year-old Mohammed Hamamra’s father is an officer in the Palestinian police. More at YNet.
• The Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas training camps in Gaza in response to a pair of rockets fired at southern Israel. One rocket landed in Sderot, damaging a house and a bus parked nearby but caused no injuries. The second rocket was intercepted by Iron Dome. More at Reuters.
• Islamic Jihad personality Mohammed Allaan suspended his hunger strike two days after resuming it. Details on this development are sketchy, but Allaan’s lawyer did confirm it to AFP.
• The Israel Electric Corporation is once again threatening to cut off power to the PA over unpaid bills. According to Globes, we’re talking about a debt of NIS 1.7 billion.
• Brazil‘s President Dilma Rousseff opposes former Israeli settlement leader Dani Dayan as ambassador.
If Netanyahu withdraws Dayan’s nomination, it could be seen as a slap in the face to the settler movement. However, if Israel stands by the appointment, it could lead to a crisis in relations between the two countries. Ynet reports that Netanyahu’s advisers hope that Rousseff can be persuaded to withdraw her objections.
• This snippet from Al-Monitor tells me three things. A) Hamas is doing a lousy job of leading the Gaza Strip, but B) The Palestinians are suckers for military showmanship. And C) the “distinction” some people make between the group’s “political” and “armed” wings is a joke.
A well-informed source in the Hamas leadership confirmed to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that al-Qassam Brigades decided to take over communication with the public from Hamas’ political wing, using various field activities — including military parades and training camps — to show off their capabilities.
The source told Al-Monitor, “Hamas made a decision to put its military wing at the forefront and to entrust it with communication with the public instead of its political wing in order to promote the movement’s politics and popularity in the Palestinian street. Al-Qassam Brigades are Hamas’ most prominent organization and are not criticized by the public, like Hamas’ political wing.”
• The Reykjavik city council backtracked somewhat on it’s decision to boycott Israeli products. City hall announced that its boycott only applies to West Bank products. But Israelis living in Iceland tell YNet there are no blue and white goods sold in Iceland.
“Don’t get wound up about Reykjavik’s decision to boycott Israel products, because it is meaningless,” said Nimrod Ron, an Israeli musician living in Iceland, regarding the capital’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods. “I have lived in Iceland for three years, and have yet to see even one Israeli product.”
On a related note, the European Jewish Congress is considering the possibilities of unspecified “legal redress.”
• Egypt flooding seawater into Gaza smuggling tunnels.
Mideast Matters
• US Secretary of State John Kerry responded to 10 questions which Times of Israel David Horovitz raised about the Iran deal in July. Horovitz’s column came up on Capitol Hill when Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina read it aloud during Congressional hearings. Here’s the full text of Kerry’s response to Horovitz’s questions.
• Imagine the outrage if Israel did this:
Egypt bans news coverage of killings of Mexican tourists
• Headline of the day, ahead of the 60 Minutes interview airing tonight. I can’t wait to hear what Rouhani has to say about Ayatollah Khamenei’s death to Israel rhetoric.
• Hezbollah has taken to recruiting Sunni Moslems in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. It’s creating divisions among the Sunnis, and not a lot of people are angry, reports Now Lebanon.
Around the World
• The body of an Israeli who disappeared in Ukraine was found in a lake near the town of Uman. It’s believed Amir Ohana, a 28-year-old father of three from Holon, fell into the water after suffering an epileptic seizure. Ohana had joined thousands of other pilgrims to spend the Jewish new year in Uman, at the burial site of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
• UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn took a hit from within his own party. Labour’s candidate for London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is Muslim, said Corbyn’s associations with Palestinian terror groups could fuel anti-Semitism in the UK. The Daily Mail writes:
Asked to comment on Corbyn’s Hamas and Hezbollah connections, he said Labour had to ditch its ‘anti-Jewish’ image, which was not acceptable’ in Britain.
Khan said there was a direct link between Middle East tension and anti-Semitic attacks in London, saying synagogues and Jewish schools in London needed 24-hour guards as a result.
• This highlights the fact that reader complaint procedures at both The Guardian and the Independent Press Standards Organisation aren’t fit for purpose. The Guardian topped IPSO’s list of complaints received about unregulated newspapers.
The Guardian and Observer, Financial Times, Evening Standard and Independent titles have so far not signed up to IPSO, which replaced the Press Complaints Commission in September 2014, or to alternative press regulator Impress.
Instead these titles have opted to regulate themselves.
Commentary/Analysis
• Raphael Ahren takes a closer at the EU’s imminent plan for labeling imports from Israeli settlements:
It is noteworthy, however, that the labeling regime will be announced in the form of “an interpretative note,” according to EU sources. It won’t be legally binding and it will not determine what exactly the labels are going to say. That means that each EU member state can decide for itself whether to write, say, “Made by Israeli settlers in Occupied Palestinian Territory” on the labels, or simply “Made in the West Bank.”
And that’s the key difference between the EU’s labeling scheme and the Iran deal. Turning a fanatical regime into a legitimate nuclear threshold power and propping it up with billions of dollars in sanctions relief poses a formidable threat to Israel. Placing labels on less than one percent of the country’s exports to the EU might further encourage the anti-Israel boycott movement, but it is a problem of an entirely different magnitude.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yaakov Amidror: Israeli strategic challenges and opportunities in the new year
– Udi Segal: Israel must prepare for Palestinian Authority’s collapse
– Avi Issacharoff: Are we on the brink of war with Hamas?
– Khaled Abu Toameh: UN gives Palestinians a flag, but not democracy
– Amos Harel: Who benefits from Jerusalem violence?
– Reuven Berko: The cynical use of Al-Aqsa
– Dan Margalit: Avoid straining Israel-Russia ties
– Gabriella Berzin: US Jews, the deal and the dilemma
– Emmnuel Navon: Why Putin is coming to Assad’s rescue
– Burak Bekdil: Why do Muslims flock to the “evil west”?
Featured image: Image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Adam Fagen; Rousseff via YouTube/Bloomberg Business; Reykjavik CC BY-SA flickr/Matito;
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