Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli forces found and killed the two main Palestinian suspects behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens earlier in the summer, after a several month manhunt. Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha were both killed during an early Tuesday arrest attempt in Hebron, the IDF said in a statement.
At around 3 a.m., the forces descended on the house where the suspects were believed to be hiding and began firing heavily on the home. Both were killed after refusing to surrender.
“We opened fire, they returned fire and they were killed in the exchange,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told Reuters. “We have visual confirmation for one. The second one, we have no visual confirmation, but the assumption is he was killed.”
And the New York Times’ take on the story? See HonestReporting’s communique – The New York Times Rewrites History of the Gaza Conflict.
2. The IDF shot down a Syrian fighter aircraft that had crossed into Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights. A Patriot missile was used to down the Russian-made Sukhoi-24 fighter jet. A video posted online Tuesday by the rebel-affiliated Syrian Media Organization claimed to show the jet being downed. It was impossible to immediately confirm the veracity of the video.
3. A U.S. federal jury found Arab Bank liable for knowingly supporting terrorism efforts connected to two dozen Palestinian attacks during the so-called Second Intifada in the early 2000s, the first time a bank has ever been held liable in a civil suit under a broad anti-terrorism statute.
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
• Israel and the Palestinians are set to resume indirect negotiations in Cairo on Tuesday. In advance of the talks, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has rejected Israeli demands that the terrorist group disarms.
• 88 Senators have written to Secretary of State John Kerry calling for regime change in Gaza:
we must support efforts to enable the Palestinian Authority to exercise real power in Gaza. Hamas has demonstrated conclusively both that it has no interest in peace with Israel and that it has no concern for the well-being of Gaza residents. …
All Palestinians deserve a government that will seek to advance their safety and prosperity—not use them as human shields. Real peace between Israelis and Palestinians will require a Palestinian partner that controls the West Bank and Gaza, is focused on economic development and stability in both areas, and will accept Gaza’s demilitarization. We must start this process now.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department announced that it plans to provide over $71 million in humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, a large portion of which is earmarked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
• Classes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis have been disrupted by the screams and shouts of political prisoners being interrogated by Hamas security forces in a nearby building, an official Palestinian Authority daily reported.
• Over 600 academics have so far signed a petition opposing an academic boycott of Israel.
Media Angles
• It transpires that the oldest son of New York Times columnist David Brooks is currently serving in the IDF. The LA Jewish Journal asks whether it matters:
Brooks is a columnist– he’s supposed to take sides, and supposed to make his opinions known. Columnists regularly dragoon their personal experiences in service to their writing– many write directly out of their family lives. At some point, Brooks will take on what it means for him to have a son in the IDF. Perhaps letting it slip out, in Hebrew, was his way to begin to think about what that means.
Will it change or inform his opinion of the Middle East conflict? Of course, as it should. But it’s not a given the experience will make Brooks more or less pro-Zionist. Talking to Israeli soldiers is an education in the good, the bad and the ugly….Through his son, Brooks will be able to get closer to the reality of the conflict, for good or ill, than most other pundits. How is that a bad thing?
Commentary/Analysis
• Seth Mandel looks at the role of media in creating anti-Semitism:
The role of the media in stimulating anti-Semitism, especially when it comes to Israel, is no secret. Sometimes this takes the form of outright falsifying events in Arab-Israeli wars–Pallywood on the part of videographers and fauxtography on the part of photojournalists–which are usually the deadlier brand of propaganda. Witness, most famously, the example of the al-Dura affair.
But it’s worth pointing out here that there are very different types of war coverage. As I wrote earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal’s coverage was textured, original, investigative, and informative. The “paper of record,” the New York Times, offered just the opposite: coverage that essentially followed Hamas’s PR strategy. European media had similar coverage with even more violent results: attempted pogroms broke out in Paris and anti-Semitic protests could be found all over Western Europe.
The anti-Semitism is blamed on Israel’s actions, which the rioters see through the prism of the media. An excellent example of this vicious cycle is Human Rights Watch’s director Ken Roth. Jonathan Foreman wrote about Roth’s obsessively anti-Israel Twitter feed for the current issue of COMMENTARY. But even more noxious is the group’s role in pushing an anti-Israel narrative that supposedly comes with the credibility of a “human-rights” group.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• What will Shimon Peres do now he is no longer Israel’s president? Check out this light-hearted video to find out.
On behalf of all of HonestReporting’s staff, we wish you a happy and healthy New Year. We’ll be back next Sunday.
Image: CC BY flickr/tomo
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