Today’s Top Stories
1. The Arab Spring has finally dropped on Israel’s doorstep: Israeli officials begin to ponder the degree of threat from al-Qaeda, now firmly entrenched along the Golan border.
“Under the 1974 armistice agreement, the Syrian army were not allowed to be close to the border with Israel,” said the Israeli commander, who toured the border with journalists last week. “They were stationed quite far away. Their tanks were only allowed within [about nine miles] of the border. But now, the rebels have taken tanks and guns and they are sitting right on the border.”
2. Keep an eye out for a rebranding campaign from Hezbollah under the banner of fighting terror. NY Times already pointing to the common goals between Hezbollah and the White House in fighting ISIS in Syria and Lebanon. How long will it be before we see commentators referring to Hezbollah as “US allies” in the war on terror?
There are signs that Hezbollah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization, may see the fight against the Islamic State as an opportunity to gain legitimacy by making the case that it is standing against terrorism.
“We need to open up a new page with the world media, with the Arabs and internationally,” declared Mr. Afif, a former director of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel. He seemed to be starting the process by becoming the first senior Hezbollah official in years to speak at length with The New York Times, in the party’s bright, airy, new external media relations office.
3. Exposed: The Lancet’s Links to Conspiracy Theorists: Signatories to an anti-Israel letter promoted by The Lancet medical journal have sympathies with the white supremacist conspiracy theories of David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
4. Activist Admits BDS Effect Largely Psychological: A look at how psychology increases the BDS effect.
5. 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
• Fancy becoming a spy? Mossad has launched a new website and recruitment campaign. Even if you don’t understand the Hebrew, the video looks slick.
• The United Nations’ top Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, wants to station hundreds of international monitors in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz has learned from European diplomats and senior Israeli officials.
• Ahead of the New Year, Israel’s population has reached an estimated 8,904,373 according to the Population and Immigration Authority. This marks an increase of 173,811, or 1.99 percent, in the total population, from 8,730,562 citizens registered with the Interior Ministry a year ago. The number of new immigrants to Israel over the past 12 months was 24,801. During the year, some 176,230 babies were born, of which 90,646 were boys and 85,584 were girls. More facts and stats in the Jerusalem Post.
Media Angles
• The Guardian profiles the BBC’s foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet:
Lyse Doucet is an award-winning BBC foreign correspondent who has been working in the field for more than 30 years and covering the Middle East for the past two decades.
However, even with this wealth of experience, the BBC’s chief international correspondent admits the targeting of civilians, and in particular children, she has witnessed over the past two years in Syria and Gaza has prompted “an editorial shift in my journalism”, evident in last month’s BBC2 documentary The Children of Syria. Doucet is already working on a follow-up based on her experience of reporting from Gaza during the Israeli onslaught this summer.
If the above implies that Doucet believes that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza, then it’s time to sound the alarm bells.
• Also in The Guardian, the paper’s readers’ editor examines press freedom in Sisi’s Egypt.
Commentary/Analysis
• Jennifer Rubin looks at efforts to fight global anti-Semitism and where they fall short:
Most notably the House passed on Thursday a resolution, authored by Reps. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.),Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), and Kay Granger(R-Tex.), condemning the rising tide of anti-Semitism. In a press release Roskam stated:
Today’s unanimous passage of our resolution sends a clear and strong message that we condemn the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout the world and that we will do all we can to prevent its spread. In 2014 alone, we have seen increased incidents of murder at Jewish sites, violent attacks and death threats against Jews, as well as violence, arson, graffiti, and other instances of vandalism at Jewish places of worship. … We must ensure the world views such actions for what they are, the vile and hate-fueled persecution of an entire people, rather than an acceptable expression of frustration with political events in the Middle East or anywhere else. The United States must continue to play an essential role in shining a spotlight on the ugly resurgence of anti-Semitism, as well as all forms of religious discrimination.
• Jeffrey Goldberg slams Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth for a tweet blaming Israel for the rise in global anti-Semitism:
It is a universal and immutable rule that the targets of prejudice are not the cause of prejudice. Just as Jews (or Jewish organizations, or the Jewish state) do not cause anti-Semitism to flare, or intensify, or even to exist, neither do black people cause racism, nor gay people homophobia, nor Muslims Islamophobia. Like all prejudices, anti-Semitism is not a rational response to observable events; it is a manifestation of irrational hatred. Its proponents justify their anti-Semitism by pointing to the (putatively offensive or repulsive) behavior of their targets, but this does not mean that major figures in the world of human-rights advocacy should accept these pathetic excuses as legitimate.
A question: If a mosque in Europe or in the U.S. were to be attacked (God forbid) by Islamophobic arsonists, would Ken Roth describe such an attack as a manifestation of “anti-Muslim hatred that flared in response to the conduct of Muslim groups in the Middle East?”
• Australian Ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma advocates breaking the Hamas stranglehold on the Gazan economy:
Israel has legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed in any new cross-border mechanism. No-one in the international community will tolerate seeing sacks of cement being used to rebuild the terror attack tunnels.
But provided we can protect Israel’s security concerns, improving economic conditions for ordinary Gazans is a goal Israel and the international community can share.
Gaza’s reconstruction needs are real and significant. As importantly, economic opportunities for Gazans to earn a living on their own must improve.
When I visited Gaza several months ago, I was shocked by the stranglehold that Hamas exercised over the economy.
If people had a job, they worked for Hamas or were employed by an aid agency. Much of the population subsisted on welfare and handouts. The economy was closed and stagnant. It was a miserable snapshot of a place once renowned for its commercial class.
A new cross-border mechanism with robust monitoring and verification could change this equation.
If goods can move more freely in and out of Gaza, if exports can resume, if a private sector can re-emerge, then the politics of Gaza can be transformed.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• King Abdullah of Jordan has stated that his country is able to defend itself against the Islamic State. See this video on CBS’s 60 Minutes:
Image: CC BY flickr/Vratislav Darmek
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
