Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel is delaying plans to demolish the illegally-built West Bank Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar until further notice. Israeli media reports said the government is considering an offer by the Bedouins to voluntarily move to a nearby location. Earlier this year, the High Court of Justice rejected the residents’ appeal, saying they failed to demonstrate ownership of the land, where 180 Bedouins live.
2. The State Department downgraded its diplomatic mission to the Palestinians, placing its Jerusalem consulate under the auspices of the embassy. AP explains the significance of the development and why Palestinians are fuming:
The consulate had for years served as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians but will now be known as the Palestinian Affairs Unit of the embassy to Israel. It will remain in its current location, at least for now, the State Department said.
The step, which was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, means that the Jerusalem consulate will no longer have a separate channel to Washington to report on Palestinian affairs and will no longer be run by a consul general with authorities tantamount to those of an ambassador . . . .
Typically, the head of a consulate, known as a consul general, reports to the ambassador, who has “chief of mission authority” over all U.S. posts in the country. In contrast, the consul general running the Jerusalem consulate historically had his or her own chief of mission authority. The closest comparable case to the Jerusalem situation is the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong, which also has its own chief of mission who does not report to the U.S. ambassador in Beijing.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Australia to move its embassy to Jerusalem anymore. As Australian officials finish counting postal ballots cast in a byelection in the Wentworth area of Sydney, independent candidate Kerryn Phelps will hold her lead over Liberal candidate and former ambassador to Israel, David Sharma. With a significant number of Jewish voters in Wentworth, Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to consider moving Australia’s embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The Wentworth result has bigger stakes than the embassy issue. Phelps’ victory erases the ruling Liberal Party’s one-seat parliamentary majority, pushing Australian politics into new uncertainty.
4. Hyenas Publishing News Scraps Are No Laughing Matter: A Gaza rocket attack on Beersheba warrants a mere paragraph in The Times of London, yet Israeli hyenas and celebrity weddings got full attention in the following days.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israel reopened its border crossings with Gaza after violence significantly decreased along the border Friday.
The IDF said a number of explosives and grenades were set off during clashes on Friday and that Palestinians broke through the fence in three locations before immediately returning to the coastal enclave, with soldiers opening fire at the suspects in one case.
However, Israeli defense officials described the demonstrations as some of the quietest since the wave of protests dubbed the “March of Return” began on March 30.
“Unlike past weeks, most of the rioters remained at a distance and did not try to reach the fence. Hamas acted for restraint on the ground,” the military said.
• Joe Truzmah wouldn’t reveal to the JNS how he tweets what he tweets about the Gaza border clashes. But in what he calls a Groundbrief, Truzmah lays out the who and how of Gaza’s Kushuk (tire) unit:
At first glance, the Kushuk Unit appears to be made up of ordinary Palestinian citizens fighting the IDF. However, a detailed look into their members revealed a structured command made up of militants and associates belonging to various factions in the Gaza Strip. There is a leader, commanders and footsoldiers who operate together as a unified group to achieve a specific goal.
• Miss Earth Lebanon was stripped of her title after posing with Miss Earth Israel. Lebanese officials withdrew their award to Salwa Akar after a photo of her and Miss Israel Earth Daza Zreik, an Israeli-Arab, spread online.
The Miss Earth web site describes itself as “channeling the beauty pageant entertainment industry as an effective tool to promote environmental awareness.”
Miss Lebanon Salwa Akar who participates in the #MissEarth2018 pageant had her title revoked today in Lebanon b/c she "dared" to take this photo w/ Miss Israel.
Miss Israel Daza Zreik is an Israeli-Arab, who proudly represents her country.
Lebanese apartheid must be condemned. pic.twitter.com/eP0t9V557c
— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) October 16, 2018
• The Supreme Court ruled that an Israeli law barring BDS activists from entering the country didn’t apply to Palestinian American student Lara Alqasem. The 22 year-old American-Palestinian student got off to a bumpy start catching up on classes at Hebrew University after the two-week legal battle. More at the New York Times and Reuters.
• Since spy-plane downing, Russia toughens stance against Israel in Syrian skies.
• Amman announced that it will not renew annexes of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty dealing with two parcels of land leased to Israel. Those leases are due to expire, but the Israeli government wants to negotiate an extension. Haaretz explains:
The territories in question are known in Arabic as al-Baqura and al-Ghamr, and Naharayim and Zofar in Hebrew . . .
Israel leased the land for 25 years upon the signing of the treaty. The deadline for renewing said leases of the treaty is this coming Thursday.
Naharayim is also known as the Island of Peace. More at the Times of Israel.
• New flight data suggests Iran sent Hezbollah advanced weapons to turn rockets into precision missiles.
• Invited to address the UN Security Council on Thursday, Hagai El-Ad, director of the human rights organization, B’Tselem, blasted Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. Take your pick of transcript or video (skip to 23:30). More at the Times of Israel.
El-Ad, speaking in English, drew analogies between the situation in the Palestinian territories, the American South under Jim Crow laws, and South Africa under its racist apartheid regime, noting that Palestinians have no representation in the Israeli institutions that govern their lives.
• Jerusalem Post: The Palestinian Authority arrested a Palestinian-US national who is accused of having a role in the sale of Arab property in eastern Jerusalem to Jews.
• Israeli security forces thwarted a terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Har Adar. A 20-year-old Palestinian was arrested with a knife inside the settlement on Saturday morning.
• An IDF military court indicted two soldiers — both in the Military Police — who are accused of stealing cash from Palestinians passing through the Qalandiya border crossing and also sexually assaulting two female tourists they were searching.
• Pressure is mounting on the New York Times to cancel its Iran “Journeys” after the paper cancelled its Saudi tours in the aftermath of the Jamal Khashoggi affair.
The @nytimes decides it can't run its Saudi Arabia tour for $11,995 because it has killed #JamalKhashoggi
The $7,895 trip to Iran is still OK though. Because Iran doesn't kill dissidents, apparently. pic.twitter.com/667zn6pN5q— Kaveh Shahrooz کاوه شهروز (@kshahrooz) October 15, 2018
• Reuters: Are Jerusalem’s upcoming municipal elections a bellwether of evolving Orthodox Jewish attitudes towards integration into Israeli society?
Around the World
• Facebook removed antisemitic preacher Louis Farrakhan’s recent video comparing Jews to termites. A Facebook representative told The Wrap the video “amounts to Tier 1 hate speech.” The video remains on Twitter, however, with a Twitter spokesman telling Buzzfeed it won’t be removed.
• Drip drip drip: Man who dismissed antisemitism is set for top Labour role in dealing with it.
• Two US academic groups are urging the University of Michigan not to sanction instructors who refused to write letters of recommendation for students who sought to study in Israel. Details at The Algemeiner.
• Germany sees dramatic rise in citizenship applications by British Jews.
• Meet Michael Jacobs, the Dutch Jew staging one-man protests against BDS in Amsterdam’s Dam Square.
• A Belgian trade union boss says Israel kills Palestinian kids for their organs.
• Chabad leader accuses Sweden of ‘persecuting’ a Jewish couple in Gothenburg who home-school their kids.
• Australian politician apologizes for linking Twitter followers to website of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. The article in question was titled, “Israel Lobby Controls Australian Foreign Policy — Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr.”
Commentary
• Tonight, Israelis mark the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Honoring his memory continues to be tricky because Israelis are still polarized about his legacy of Oslo.
I was in Jerusalem the night Rabin was killed, and I haven’t forgotten the shock, disbelief, and subsequent finger pointing as the assassin’s bullets tore not just through Rabin but the fabric of Israel’s society. That hole isn’t stitched up, which is why I appreciated Shmuel Rosner‘s take.
• Plenty spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing in on the Gaza situation.
– Avi Issacharoff: Both Israel, Hamas tout ‘accomplishments’ in Gaza — but is calm truly possible?
– Jason Greenblatt: There is a path for Gaza
– Yoni Ben Menachem: Hamas’ double message for Israel and Egypt
– Elior Levy: The rope around Hamas’s neck is tightening, but for how long will it hold?
– Yossi Yehoshua: The cost of Israel’s restraint in Gaza
– Yoram Yuval: The dangerous illusion of absolute security
– David Weinberg: Mowing the grass in Gaza
– Zev Chafets: Why Netanyahu called off a war in Gaza
• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend . . .
– Dani Dayan: Israeli diplomacy in the age of bots and trolls
– Daniel Kurtzer: The Trump administration’s latest blow to the chances for Mideast peace
– Ben-Dror Yemini: A unreasonable ruling
– Lahav Harkov: Alqasem ruling proves the system works
– Dror Eydar: B’Tselem: Jews tattling on other Jews is nothing new
– Tom Quiggin: Is Canada knowingly funding extremism and terrorism — including through UNRWA?
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Palestinians don’t have a parliament
– Melanie Phillips: Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate, he’s the result of it
Featured image: CC BY-SA carterse; US flag CC BY Sean McMenemy; Morrison via YouTube/Guardian News; El-Ad via YouTube/btselem; Dam Square CC BY-NC Charles W. Bailey Jr.; Rabin CC BY-NC-SA Government Press Office;
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