Today’s Top Stories
1. Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Mudar Zahran discussed the Gaza war with regular Palestinians. Everyone was fearful of Hamas and spoke anonymously about the extent the general population was used as a human shield. The whole story’s worth reading; this snippet in particular caught my eye:
One, a renowned Gazan academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that as soon as someone talked to a Western journalist, he was immediately questioned by Hamas and accused of “communicating with the Mossad”. “Hamas makes sure that the average Gazan will not talk to Western journalists — or actually any journalists at all,” he said, continuing:
“Hamas does not want the truth about Gaza to come out. Hamas terrorizes and kills us just like Daesh [ISIS] terrorizes kills Iraqis. Hamas is a dictatorship that kills us. The Gazans you see praising Hamas on TV are either Hamas members or too afraid to speak against Hamas. Few foreign [Western] journalists were probably able to report what Gazans think of Hamas.”
2. Reuters: Tehran’s willing to help the West fight ISIS — in exchange for American “flexibility” on Iran’s centrifuges and sanctions.
3. Israel-Hamas talks to resume Tuesday in Cairo.
4. It takes a lot of effort to put together a daily roundup of everything you need to know about Israel and the Mideast. If you have found the Israel Daily News Stream useful, please consider donating to HonestReporting so we can continue keeping you informed.
Israel and the Palestinians
• This is what the Hamas/Fatah budget battle has come to: Hamas gunmen seizing $750,000 from a Bank of Palestine branch in Gaza. Khaled Abu Toameh explains that while Hamas is not above “armed robbery in broad daylight,” Fatah prefers enriching itself and its cronies through more refined financial and administrative corruption.
• France:Israel-Palestinian solution to be presented to the UN Security Council
• Two Iranians were busted in Kenya trying to travel on forged Israeli passports. According to Israeli media reports:
The two Iranian men were scheduled to board a Brussels Airlines flight to the Belgian capital and fly from there to Ben Gurion Airport, according to the report.
• Jurors heard closing arguments from US prosecutors and the Arab Bank in a lawsuit brought by victims of Palestinian terror. The Jordanian-based bank is accused of handling financial transactions for Hamas and its associates. The Jerusalem Post explains the significance of the lawsuit.
The central question is whether a 11-member jury of eight women and three men, with a majority appearing to be African-American or Hispanic, will find that Arab Bank knew or should have known that its account holders were using it to transfer “blood money” to Hamas for terrorist operations – or whether it checked for suspicious transactions as best it could, and simply missed them.
• With the war in Gaza over, Europe’s governing body for soccer, UEFA, ended a ban on Israel hosting soccer matches.
• British parliamentarians will vote a on a motion supporting a Palestinian state. The vote itself is symbolic, but the House of Commons is devoting October 13 to a full day of debate, so expect fireworks. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• The UK Labour Party suspended a parliamentary candidate, Vicki Kirby, for posting some ugly tweets about Israel. I couldn’t find Kirby’s Twitter feed but according to the Sunday Times of London, she labeled Israel as “evil,” suggested ISIS should invade it, said Hitler might be “the Zionist God,” and supported boycotts of Israel. The party also suspended two other candidates for unrelated homophobic and racist tweets. More at The Independent.
• IDF confirms surveillance drone crashed in Lebanon.
• Israel believes Syria has retained significant amounts of chemical weapons. An anonymous (grrrr) Israeli source told Reuters:
Summarizing Israeli intelligence estimates that were previously not disclosed to avoid undermining the Syrians’ surrender of their declared chemical arsenal, the official said they had kept some missile warheads, air-dropped bombs and rocket-propelled grenades primed with toxins like sarin.
Media Angles
• After former Israel correspondent Matti Friedman hit back at AP, so did his ex-AP colleague Mark Lavie. All this has their former bureau chief, Steve Gutkin, on the defensive.
• Jerusalem Post: A female Moroccan journalist accuses the deputy head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad of sexually assaulting her in a Beirut hotel. But PIJ claims that what happened between Amal Ahmed — the editor of the Cyprus-based Al-Amal Al-Arabi — and the deputy head of PIJ, Ziad al-Nakhaleh is more nefarious than meets the eye. I’m sure there’s a Mossad connection to the Ray Rice video too.
The PIJ official said that his organization was convinced that the Moroccan editor was part of a scheme by “Mossad or an Arab or Western intelligence agency to assassinate Ramadan Shalah or his deputy, Ziad al-Nakhaleh.”
• AFP will no longer use freelance work from Syria:
Journalists are no longer welcome in rebel-held Syria, as independent witnesses to the suffering of local populations. They have become targets, or commodities to be traded for ransom.
That is also why we no longer accept work from freelance journalists who travel to places where we ourselves would not venture. It is a strong decision, and one that may not have been made clear enough, so I will repeat it here: if someone travels to Syria and offers us images or information when they return, we will not use it. Freelancers have paid a high price in the Syrian conflict. High enough. We will not encourage people to take that kind of risk.
• Is the US “going to war” with ISIS? Depends on whether you believe White House or media buzzwords.
• Swedish Comedian Confronts His Country’s ‘Anti-Semitic’ Media
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Dear Fellow Liberals: I’m Done Apologizing for Israel
• A New York Post staff-ed pans Richard Falk and Columbia University. The former UN official and resident Israel-basher will deliver a lecture named after the late Edward Said. ‘Nuff said.
• For more commentary/analysis, see a New York Daily News staff-ed (slamming the UN inquiry into Operation Protective Edge), Ahron Shapiro (After the Gaza conflict: the view from Israel),
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Hamas’s biggest backer, Qatar, hired a top PR and lobbying firm to firm up ties with the US. O’Dwyer’s got the scoop; Algemeiner has more background. Must be in response to headlines like this:
• What privacy debate? Police drone use in Israel flies under the radar
• Stephen Schlesinger lauds the dangerous, valuable work of UN peacekeepers. But the Irish Independent raises questions about the Irish contingent who fled ISIS forces in Syria not being sufficiently armed:
Irish troops were sent into the highly-dangerous UN mission in the Golan Heights without missiles that military sources said would have been a “game changer” in any fire-fight with Islamist rebels.
Instead, the Javelin missiles, which cost €70,000 each, remained back in the Curragh Camp in Co Kildare while Irish peacekeepers armed with just machine guns and rifles were caught up in a dramatic gun battle with al-Qaeda-linked rebels.
Featured mage: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Scott*, Parliament by Flickr/Rajan Manickavasagam
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