Why Did PA Sign Secret Deal With UN Atomic Agency?

Today’s Top Stories

1. Quite a scoop by the Jerusalem Post. “The Palestinian Authority (PA) signed a draft agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in February, which was confirmed by the IAEA’s Board of Governors. Yet because the document is classified as “Restricted,” it has not yet been published.”

The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have nuclear reactors nor does it intend to build or purchase them. Surely it doesn’t possess nuclear bombs, not to mention that Israel, as the occupying force, monitors the situation closely and prevents the entry of any suspicious nuclear materials to the West Bank, even for potential dual use.

The PA move challenges Israel, the IAEA and the US. A “state” by definition is responsible for all the materials and equipment within its territory. Therefore, it will be interesting to watch how the IAEA will deal with this issue and define the areas of the “Palestinian state.”

2. Israelis went to the polls to choose municipal leaders. Jerusalem will have a run-off election in two weeks, pitting city council members Moshe Lion and Ofir Berkovitch, as no candidate received a minimum 40 percent of the vote to avoid a second round.

In Tel Aviv, incumbent Mayor Ron Huldai secured his last victory. The 74-year-old Huldai has been mayor since 1998; by law, he will be required to step down when his new term ends in 2023. And in Haifa, voters ousted incumbent Yona Yahav for the city’s first female mayor, Einat Kalisch Rotem. More election-related developments below.

3. A grieving Pittsburgh held the first funerals for the 11 Jews killed in Saturday’s Squirrel Hill synagogue massacre. Details on the remaining funerals were released as were updates on the injured police officers.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had the latest on the legal proceedings against the accused gunman, Robert Bowers. See below for more developments and commentary.

Israel and the Palestinians

• For now, Israel is fine with weakening Hamas, but not toppling it from power. Israeli officials have concluded, according to Haaretz, that a power vacuum in the Strip isn’t in Israel’s interests, even though that appears to be the Palestinian Authority’s goal. “As a result, senior political and defense officials say Israel’s talks with Hamas through intermediaries will be more effective than a process that involves the PA.”

That would explain later reports also picked up by Haaretz, of an Israel-Qatar deal to transfer funds for Hamas’ civil servants. It’s not clear if the agreement was only reached in principle or is already being implemented:

According to the reports, Gaza’s Finance Ministry has prepared the list of officials who will receive the payments, as requested by the Qataris. It is still unknown whether security officials in the police and the security forces will also receive their salaries from the Qatari money.

• A new poll finds most Gazans oppose the border clashes.

• The IDF is opening a criminal inquiry into the death of a Palestinian medic during Gaza border clashes in June. The army’s initial findings were that Razan Najar,a 21-year-old volunteer medic was not killed by soldiers.

In calling for the criminal probe, Afek was not rejecting the army’s initial findings, but rather felt the issue demanded a deeper review in light of the claims by Palestinians that the troops had intentionally targeted Najjar, a source told The Times of Israel, on condition of anonymity. Under the framework of a criminal probe, the Military Police would be better able to perform such an investigation.

• The Coptic Church is gearing up for a new turf battle at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

• AP takes a closer look at Israel-Gulf ties becoming increasingly overt.

• Can Marwan Barghouti unite Palestinians from an Israeli jail?

• After Human Rights Watch issued a report denouncing systematic human rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, The Media Line sought Palestinian reactions:

A Palestinian journalist who is based in the West Bank, however, told The Media Line under condition of anonymity for reasons of personal safety, that despite the harassment Palestinian media in the West Bank face, “the situation here [in the West Bank] is not even comparable to that of Gaza-based journalists.

“In the West Bank, our situation is much better than other situations for journalists in the Middle East,” he elaborated, “What we really need here is for the PA to raise the ceiling of freedoms for us.”

The reporter charged that both the PA and Hamas judge journalists’ work on its political background and views. In the West Bank, the PA deals with critics of the government agenda by denying them the ability to ply their craft, but while in Gaza, he saw that the Islamic Jihad detained journalists, closed down its media offices and denied access to work materials.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to attend Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration. Netanyahu would be the first Israeli PM to visit the South American nation. Bolsonaro — who supports moving Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem and shutting down the Palestinian mission in Brasilia — is to be sworn in on January 1, 2019. Haaretz coverage.

• An Iranian plot to assassinate dissidents in Denmark was foiled with an assist from Israel’s Mossad.

• Did Netanyahu’s plane secretly land in Islamabad? Haaretz examines how one tweet sparked hysteria and a government crisis in Pakistan.

Window Into Israel

• Protests and violence broke out at polling stations in the Golan Heights, where Druze residents for the first time were able to directly vote for mayors and council members in their four towns.

The vote was controversial since many Druze who feel connected to Syria fear it will help Israel legitimize its control over the region . . .

There had been calls to boycott the election during campaigning and a string of candidates pulled out.

Polling was to occur in four Druze villages in the Golan, though it was called off in two because there were no candidates.

• Haaretz, Ynet and the Times of Israel rounded up results from the rest of the country.

Almost no slips of paper used in this voting booth in East Jerusalem. #Palestinians in Jerusalem typically boycott Israeli elections, refusing to recognize its sovereignty over the city. Despite hopes, it was no different this year….. https://t.co/GEL4yfjjvH

— Ruth Marks Eglash (@reglash) October 30, 2018

• For a sense of what they’re saying about the election results and what’s next, see Marissa Newman and Raoul Wootliff.

Around the World

• When it comes to synagogue security, the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter) and JTA examine what can US Jews learn from Europe. Securing synagogues and other US Jewish institutions could cost perhaps $1 billion.

• The Jewish staff of Allegheny General Hospital who treated Bowers made a powerful impression. Allegheny General Hospital President Jeffrey Cohen shared his story with local affiliate WTAE, and from there, ABC News, CNN, Britain’s Channel 4, and others.

• In a strange twist of fate, now it’s Russian Jews praying for American Jews.

• The New York Times searched Instagram for the word “Jew.” The results were 11,696 examples of how hate thrives on social media.

• AP: “For many Jewish journalists in the U.S., persistent online anti-Semitic harassment has become part of the job.”

However, he said there was a new surge of anti-Semitic material — much of it generated by bots — after the Pittsburgh massacre.

“They flood the zone in the wake of these kind of controversies … sowing discord and distrust,” he said.

• Halloween haunted house that held ‘Swastika Saturday’ on day of Pittsburgh attack apologizes, donates proceeds to Squirrel Hill’s Tree of Life synagogue.

• Drip drip drip: The UK Labour party dropped a formal complaint it filed against the Daily Mail, claiming its correspondence with the Independent Press Standards Organisation was compromised.

IPSO confirmed to the Press Gazette that it is “no longer investigating any complaints about the relevant articles, but declined to comment on Labour’s claim that the complaints process was compromised.”

The decision will be seen as a vindication for the Mail’s original story, which concerned a photo, obtained by this paper, of Mr Corbyn holding a wreath only feet away from the graves of terror leaders linked to the 1972 killings . . .

Labour insisted Mr Corbyn had been at the cemetery to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian PLO base in 1985.

But the Mail found that the monument to the air strike victims is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the complex. Instead he was in front of a plaque beside the graves of Black September members.

• Drip drip drip: Poll finds 38 percent of British public ‘believe Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic.’

• Denmark won’t fund groups that promote boycott against Israel, foreign minister says

• Student leader says antisemitic graffiti appears almost daily at French universities.

Commentary

• Still trying to make sense of the Steel City synagogue slaughter. These commentaries are just the tip of the iceberg of more issues raised by the tragedy.

– Brendan O’Neill: The militarisation of anti-Semitism
– Daniel Markind: From both Left and Right, they always come for us
– Alexandra Schwartz: The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the return of antisemitism to American life
– Melanie Phillips: Hatred of Jews unites far right and left
– Eliora Katz: The old antisemitism in the New World (click via Twitter)
– Ira Rifkin: Pittsburgh surprised many: But not those who repeatedly reported rising American anti-Semitism
– Alexis Madrigal: Pittsburgh and the dilemma of antisemitic speech online
– David Efune: Is America any different when it comes to antisemitism?
– Fiamma Nirenstein: The disease of antisemitism infects everyone
– Gil Troy: Let’s unite over Sinai, not Auschwitz – or Pittsburgh

PRAYERS for PITTSBURGH
It saddens so much when I hear of these horrible tragedies and I think of the eleven lives that are forever lost, the people they have left behind, the wounded, and… https://t.co/LXnXA6HZG4

— Michael Ramirez (@Ramireztoons) October 30, 2018

• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .

– Pinhas Inbari: PLO Council meeting in Ramallah – to be or not to be
– Amos Harel: Pendulum swings back towards renewed Israel-Gaza conflict
– Elliot Kaufman: The Palestinians’ worst enemy is their own leaders (click via Twitter)
– Smadar Perry: The Omani way of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conlict
– Ronen Bergman: Oman is Israel’s link to the Mideast
– Dr. Reuven Berko: No disguising Abbas’ anti-Semitism
– Bassam Tawil: New Palestinian ‘concern’ for international conventions
– Mayuri Mukherjee: How Israel made friends in India
– Eric Mandel: Is America ready for Iran’s plans in Jordan and Lebanon?
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed) Iran’s European hit squads (click via Twitter)

Featured image: CC BY Terry Ozon; Qatar CC0 Max Pixel; Sepulchre CC BY-NC-ND Christopher Chan; censorship CC0 James Ledbetter;

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

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