Today’s Top Stories
1. Pittsburgh mourned the 11 people killed in Saturday’s synagogue massacre as America and Jews around the world tried to make sense of the violence. See below for updates and commentary.
2. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. The victory is already fueling speculation that he will relocate Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Brazilian Jews shared their thoughts with Haaretz and the JTA.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev have already respectively visited Oman and the United Arab Emirates. And two other cabinet ministers announced upcoming visits to Dubai and Oman. Are warming Israel-Gulf ties a sign of the times?
Regev, who was accompanying the Israeli judo team at a tournament in the UAE, made her own headlines by visiting Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque. The Times of Israel explains the significance:
World leaders are frequently invited to visit the mosque, thus underlining the official nature of the trip, the first-ever official state visit by an Israeli minister.
More iconic than the Jerusalem dress?
Miri Regev visits the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi. pic.twitter.com/mh9k8x5Ey0— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) October 29, 2018
Israel and the Palestinians
• An IDF airstrike killed three Palestinians doing something at the Israel-Gaza border fence. They were all teenagers, merely 13-14 years old. The IDF said the three were planting explosives, which the Palestinians denied. The Daily Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez tweeted that the IDF doesn’t have any video evidence that the kids were planting explosives, but added that the Palestinian explanations for why the kids were at the fence are inconsistent. In any event, Islamic Jihad vowed revenge.
• Israeli security officials believe Gaza rockets are the result of a power struggle between Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iran. See Yoni Ben Menachem‘s take.
• Protesting months of rocket fire and incendiary balloons, Israeli residents living near the Gaza border blocked the Kerem Shalom crossing, preventing dozens of trucks from delivering supplies to the Strip.
• Israel sold $250 million in spy systems to Saudi Arabia, according to Arab reports picked up by the Jerusalem Post.
• Poll finds most Israelis see EU as a foe rather than a friend.
Around the World
• Latest developments from Pittsburgh: As this roundup was published, Robert Bowers, the accused gunman, was due to make his first appearance in federal court today. He faces 29 federal charges, and local reports say that US Attorney Scott Brady will seek the death penalty. The six police officers injured while responding to the shooting were identified. Officers Dan Mead, Tim Matson and Anthony Burke remain hospitalized while officers John Persin, Michael Smigda and Tyler Pashel have been released. Last but not least, synagogue survivor Barry Werber described the attack to the Associated Press.
• Among today’s burning questions: Will this attack be a turning point for the security of American Jewish institutions? Why do extremists keep attacking places of worship? Why is Robert Bowers not being prosecuted for terrorism? What is HIAS and why did Bowers hate it? How does this attack compare to antisemitic attacks in Europe? How did Squirrel Hill’s Orthodox Jews learn of the Sabbath attack and when? Why did some Israeli media not refer to Tree of Life as a “synagogue?”
• See profiles of the massacre’s 11 victims at the Washington Post and National Public Radio.
See also special dispatches from Squirrel Hill at The Atlantic, USA Today and the JTA.
• Tweet of the day goes to Pittsburgh reporter Bill Rehkopf:
Man, is this picture ever #Pittsburgh. #TreeofLifeSynogogue #GodBlessTheChild #MyHometown @CBSNewsRadio pic.twitter.com/7J8GMpA3gh
— Bill Rehkopf (@BillRehkopf) October 28, 2018
• Another individual under fire for a ham-handed response to the massacre we could’ve done without is Jewish-American writer David Simon.
Commentary
• “Tehran’s recent anti-Israel activity may, somewhat counter-intuitively, be a sign of distress ahead of new American sanctions and as a regional alliance against it coalesces.”
• Worth reading: Stephen Daisley weighs in on this photo taken at a recent clash along the Gaza border. The Palestinians are gushing over it.
As a live Palestinian, Amro, who was snapped mid-rampage on Monday, will not have the same impact on low-information media consumers. He has, however, stirred that morbid romanticism which draws Western progressives to the Palestinians . . .
Depictions of heroic resistance arouse Rousseauian passions in certain sections of the left, a predilection for radical chaos and contempt for liberal reform. This impulse rewrites the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a romantic epic in which crudely sketched characters are swept up and righteous victims ennobled by their oppression at the hands of inhuman tormentors. The left has spent so long making icons of the Palestinians that it scarcely remembers they are human beings.
Anyone else getting HUGE French Romantic à la "Liberty Leading the People" vibes from this photograph?!
Art history parallels aside, what an incredibly powerful shot.
(Photo by Mustafa Hassouna) pic.twitter.com/4AQexiWLlc
— Simone Littledale Escobar (@quiubosimone) October 25, 2018
• Pittsburgh’s on everyone’s mind . . .
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): There should be no Left or Right when Jews are massacred in America
– Lou Weiss: Amalek comes to Pittsburgh (click via Twitter)
– Daniel Byman: When to call a terrorist a terrorist
– Jonathan Tobin: The futile search for meaning in antisemitic crimes
– Sarah Ebner: The Pittsburgh shooting shows anti-Semitism is as real and terrifying as ever
– Anshel Pfeffer: From Pittsburgh to Paris, five lessons for Jews everywhere
– John Podhoretz: What I learned as an American Jew after the Pittsburgh synagogue attack
– Rabbi Warren Goldstein: Jews need to spread light despite Pittsburgh attack
– Dani Dayan: Israel’s heart goes out to Squirrel Hill (click via Twitter)
It was an incredibly sad day in Pittsburgh. We are all still in shock. My heart goes out to all of the families directly affected by this senseless tragedy. https://t.co/mYNBq4j2wG #PittsburghStrong #PittsburghSynagogue #PittsburghShooting #HateCrimes pic.twitter.com/4dWH8Gd8M9
— Rob Rogers (@Rob_Rogers) October 28, 2018
– David Horovitz: The twilight for US Jews, and for the US, if Judaism’s core precept is forgotten
– Jonathan Greenblatt: When hate goes mainstream
– Jeff Blattner: Pittsburghers treat each other as one community. We should all learn from them.
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): The oldest hatred (click via Twitter)
– Baltimore Sun (staff-ed) Pittsburgh shooting was anything but ‘unimaginable’
– Carly Pildis: The warning signs against American Jews have been growing for years
– Jeffrey Salkin: Why Pittsburgh matters
– Sam Stein: I grew up in a place where I felt safe from anti-Semitism — It was the United States
– Jeff Jacoby: The Pittsburgh massacre reflects a changing America
Featured image: CC BY-NC-ND Binuri Ranasinghe; question CC0 Public Domain Pictures;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please note our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
