Today’s Top Stories
1. UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, evacuated most of its international staff from Gaza to Israel. The personnel from overseas were threatened and harassed by the UNRWA’s Palestinian employees, disgruntled by budget cuts and layoffs. One of UNRWA’s foreign workers still in Gaza described to the Times of Israel the incident that prompted their hasty exit from Gaza, and how the agency is operating for now. See Hillel Neuer‘s take:
If even the most ardent advocates in the world of the Palestinian narrative had to flee Gaza due to death threats from their Palestinian employees, how can those same figures deny to Israelis the right to defend themselves from Gaza's Hamas-led terrorists attacking their border? https://t.co/zUrcZTjfkU
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
2. German chancellor Angela Merkel is due to arrive in Israel today. According to Israeli media reports which the German embassy in Israel subsequently denied, Merkel threatened to cancel her visit if Israel makes any move to evacuate the illegally built West Bank Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar before her arrival. Last month, the High Court of Justice ruled that the Bedouins failed demonstrate ownership of the land and allowed an injunction against the demolition to expire.
The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel and Haaretz preview what’s in store for Merkel’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
3. Doubling down on previous antisemitic tropes, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad insisted that Jews are indeed “hook-nosed,” asserted that six million Jews weren’t killed in the Holocaust, and blamed Israel for everything wrong in the Mideast. Backstory at the Times of Israel. Here’s the full BBC Hardtalk interview.
4. An Irish Teacher’s Harsh Unreality: Daire Louise O’Dowd is entitled to her opinions, however misguided and hateful they may be. She is not, however, entitled to spread lies and half-truths.
5. Video: Why is the US cutting aid to Palestinian refugees? Here’s what you need to know.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Associated Press: “The Palestinian Authority filed a case Friday with the United Nations’ highest court asking its judges to order Washington to remove the recently relocated U.S. embassy from Jerusalem.”
• Palestinian Islamic Jihad elected a new leader, and in the process, strengthening Iran’s influence over the Gaza-based terror group. Ziad al-Nakhalah replaces Ramadan Shalah, who is said to be comatose.
• Israel arrested two West Bank Palestinians suspected of planning terror attacks for Hamas.
• If you haven’t already seen Netanyahu’s address to the opening session of the United Nations (see video or transcript), he disclosed for the first time the existence of a secret atomic storehouse in Tehran for storing what he called “massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.” and called for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (IAEA chief Yukiya Amano dismissed the PM’s call.)
Netanyahu reportedly sought to reveal an additional site, but the Israeli security establishment recommended against it.
• Emboldened by civil war gains, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the UN that Damascus will recapture the Golan too. Just how seriously should Israel take the threat?
• UN Secretary-General to UNESCO: Denying Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism.
• South Africa quietly returned its ambassador to Israel. Ambassador Sisa Ngombane was recalled to Pretoria four months ago in protest against IDF activities in response to violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza border. Times of Israel coverage.
• Here’s a Muslim majority country actually fishing for Israeli recognition: Kosovo says it would move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem — if it had one.
Israel’s decision to not recognize Kosovo was based in part upon its own fears that Palestinians would use Kosovo to justify their own independence, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time. However, politicians in both countries have spoken warmly of their ties and hopes for a new relationship in the future.
• Do Arabs view Ahed Tamimi as an icon of Palestinian “resistance,” a ditzy teenager, or an “agent” of Israel? It depends on which Arabs you ask. (See Dr. Eitan Orkibi, who describes Tamimi’s “victory lap around Europe” as blonde-washing terrorism.)
Mideast Matters
• Iran fired six ballistic missiles into an Islamic State-held area of Syria in retaliation for a deadly attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) made sure to paint “death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to al-Saud” on the missiles. The missiles flew 570 km, crossing over northern Iraqi airspace.
Slogans written on the missiles launched by #Iran today according to Iran State TV :
“Down with USA”
“Down with Israel”
“Down with the house of Saud”— Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) October 1, 2018
• France froze assets of Iran’s intelligence service linked to a foiled bombing attack in a Paris suburb. The attack on a gathering of Iranian opposition figures in June was thwarted thanks to the Mossad tipping off French, German and Belgian officials.
• “German special police forces arrested a Syrian man last week in a central street in Berlin on suspicion of planning to carry out a chemical attack on Israel, according to local media.”
• Per Ynet, picking up on Arab reports: “Thousands of residents of the Dahieh suburb south of Beirut, an area controlled by Hezbollah, received anonymous mobile phone notifications warning them they live in close proximity to a Hezbollah weapons storage compound that has the potential of exploding at any moment, the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported on Wednesday, implying Israel is responsible for incident.”
• Hezbollah’s growing partnership with the Lebanon’s army provides operational cover.
• Iranian authorities, detained three people after photoshopped images of Israeli soldiers were mistakenly put up on an Iranian billboard commemorating “Defense Week.” According to the Jerusalem Post:
The billboard depicted three Israeli soldiers, photoshopped from a photo by Timon Studler that had been uploaded onto the Unsplash.com website. The image was cropped to remove a female IDF soldier. However, the person who made the poster neglected to notice that the soldiers had M-16s – rifles the Iranian army is not equipped with.
The billboard in #Iran's #Shiraz caused an uproar among #Iran social media users,citizens&the poster was taken down.
Billboard in Shiraz meant to commemorate the country’s 8-year-long war with Iraq featured images of soldiers from the #Israel Defense Forces.
? pic.twitter.com/J0xLg0qZZL— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) September 28, 2018
Window Into Israel
• A Spanish journalist working in Jerusalem was arrested for the hit-and-run death of Chaim Tukachinsky, a pianist, composer and conductor. What initially seemed to be a tragic story of drunk driving became way more complicated, according to Israeli media reports.
The journalist, Julio de la Guardia, worked as a foreign correspondent for a series of Spanish outlets. He was kicked out of Israel in 2011 after he hit his wife in a domestic dispute, seriously injuring her, the television report said, citing Foreign Ministry officials.
It was not immediately clear why de la Guardia, 51,was reissued a new work visa and allowed to return to Israel.
The report said that during the investigation into the accident it had been discovered that the reporter had also been working for a Spanish-language Iranian TV company under an assumed name.
Here’s a glimpse of Tukachinsky’s talent.
• Seeking to narrow the gender gap in Tel Aviv city hall, a first-ever all-female list is running to balance out the city council. Shelly Harel, leader of Halo, told the Jerusalem Post, “Only eight of the 31 city council members are female and none of them lead a party.”
Meanwhile, Rachel Azaria and Zippi Brand Frank “dropped out of the upcoming Jerusalem and Tel Aviv races respectively” which means no women are left in either city’s mayoral campaign. More on that at The Media Line. Municipal elections across Israel will be held on October 30.
• The IDF comptroller was ordered to investigate the military’s readiness for war. The move comes after a disagreement within the military brass about the IDF’s preparedness for conflict went public earlier this year. See Jerusalem Post coverage and Zev Chafets‘ commentary.
• Police to question Netanyahu on Friday in graft probes.
• Israel to invest NIS 4 billion in garbage treatment.
• Two people were died at an outdoor rave in the Upper Galilee. Police suspect at least one of the deaths was due to a drug overdose, Haaretz reported.
Around the World
• Drip drip drip: Plenty of controversy at the UK Labour party’s national conference. Jewish delegates arrived with bodyguards. Marxists openly distributed material explaining “Why Israel is a racist state.” Plenty of Palestinian flags were waved. A Jewish event on the sidelines of the conference was cancelled after someone called in what turned out to be a phony bomb threat. See Anshel Pfeffer‘s account of the proceedings.
Meanwhile, party leader Jeremy Corbyn stoked more anger by praising antisemitic poet Ernest Jones and being photographed with an activist who wants Holocaust denial to be treated as free speech. And in a Channel 4 interview, Corbyn repeatedly refused to say whether he regretted working for Iran’s Press TV. Corbyn received “up to £20,000 for five appearances between 2009 and 2012.” Backstory at the Times of Israel.
Jeremy Corbyn is asked four times if he regrets working for Press TV – Iran's state funded broadcaster. pic.twitter.com/732Z2GlTtX
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 25, 2018
• Drip drip drip: A poll picked up by the Times of London suggests Labour’s antisemitism problem will cost the party one million votes in Britain’s next elections.
• Drip drip drip: Corbyn says his Labour government “will recognise an independent state of Palestine as soon as we take office.”
• Jewish Chronicle: UK to ban Hezbollah political wing.
• Ireland’s public broadcaster, RTE, won’t punish staff refuse to attend — on “conscientious grounds” — the upcoming Eurovision song competition in Tel Aviv. According to the Jerusalem Post:
RTE said it did not believe any member of its staff had ever protested a Eurovision in the past. In 2012, the contest was held in Azerbaijan, and in 2009 it was held in Russia – both countries with questionable records on human rights.
• Per the JTA, “A letter from 55 U.S. House of Representatives Republicans to President Donald Trump asks him to direct the State Department to allow U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their birth country on their passport.”
• If Spain recognizes Palestine as a state, would Israel recognize an independent Catalonia?
• German court powerless to stop Kuwait Airways anti-Israel policy.
• An Israeli student at Columbia U. says she’s being bullied by a Palestinian group, and the administration is failing to protect her.
• A Manhattan sukkah was vandalized with the words “Free Gaza.” Police are investigating it as a hate crime.
They continue to tell me that Israel hatred and Jew hatred are not the same thing.. They are wrong!
A sukkah was vandalized overnight in New York City. Disgraceful! pic.twitter.com/iAixoAI56K
— Leibel Mangel (@LeibelMangel) September 30, 2018
• A secret recording from 2013 surfaced in the Polish media of current Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki slamming ‘greedy’ Jewish, American hedge fun owners.
• Guess what hit the fan: Angered by a hair salon’s swastika logo, Taiwanese protesters urinated and defecated in front of the store.
• Hmmmmm. Per The Guardian, “The British newspaper industry’s trade body has said the government should force social media sites such as Facebook and Google to pay an annual financial levy to fund journalism, and set up a regulator that would force them to take legal responsibility for all the content on their platforms.”
Commentary
• If you’re trying to make sense of Israeli and Russian head space over Syrian air space, here are a few questions: Does Putin have any reason to give up his leverage on Israel? Has Moscow ever had a crisis it didn’t try to exploit? Is the S-300 threat due to it’s power, or because it’ll be manned by Russians?
Is ugly antisemitism a factor in Russia’s reaction, the lies in its defense ministry report, or fears of the pro-Israel lobby penetrating “all the administrative structures of the Russian Federation, plus the mass media, plus the oligarchs, etc.”?
Further, can the US make Russia back off in the Middle East? And would Trump save Israel in the next war?
• A column in Germany’s most widely read newspaper, called for an end to trade with Iran in order to protect Israel. The Jerusalem Post picked up on a blunt commentary by Julian Ropcke, the foreign policy editor of Bild (German).
• In the name of peace, it is time to accept Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights, argue Spain’s former national security advisor Rafael Bardaji and Col. Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan.
• UK Labour pains made for plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels. For a a sense of what they’re saying, see Eve Garrard, Ronald Lauder, Robert Philpot, Margaret Hodge, Colin Shindler, Daniel Finkelstein, Gisela Stuart and Tom Gross.
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Dealing with Iran must come first
– Ron Prosor: Forcing Iran’s allies to face the truth
– Avi Issacharoff: Cornered by US and Israel, Abbas could pull plug on Gaza — and start a war
– Benny Avni: Abbas says no to peace
– Vivian Bercovici: No hope for Mideast peace if the Palestinians won’t renounce terrorism
– Abdulrahman al-Rashed: Closing down Palestinian embassy in Washington: End of the cause?
– Orly Azoulay: Trump’s UN speech was the worst thing for Israel
– Marc Schulman: Why Donald Trump is dangerous for Israel
– Oren Liebermann: Trump’s new position on two-state solution won’t budge Israelis or Palestinians
– Colin Rubenstein: Trump should encourage a more conciliatory Palestinian leadership
– Bassam Tawil: Israel’s ‘nationality’ law and Palestinian lies
• Credit to Netanyahu for raising the alarm on Iran. But as Einat Wilf points out, the last few days have been lousy for anyone trying to make a splash with American public opinion.
I Must admit that at this very moment, I am much more gripped by terror watching the testimony of #ChristineBlaseyFord knowing that what she describes remains a clear and present danger faced by every girl, than learning of yet another nuclear facility somewhere in Iran.
— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) September 27, 2018
• Here’s what else I’m reading:
– Asaf Romirowsky: Normalizing antisemitism
– Yoram Ettinger: American aid to Israel is a sound investment
– Michael Makovsky, Charles Ward: Beating back Iran’s aggression by supporting Israel
– Emily Schrader: Qatar’s cynical PR strategy: AJ+
– Mohammed Samhouri: The Gaza disengagement: Personal reflections on a missed opportunity
Featured image: CC BY Giuseppe Milo; Merkel CC BY EU2017EE Estonian Presidency; Kosovo via Wikimedia Commons; WhatsApp CC BY-NC pngimg.com; soldiers CC BY-NC Israel Defense Forces; passport CC0 Pixabay; Air Force via Wikimedia Commons; Abbas via YouTube/United Nations;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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