Today’s Top Stories
1. Dissing PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ mantra of “one authority, one law and one gun,” Hamas says it won’t even discuss giving up weapons if the PA takes over Gaza. According to Arab reports picked up by Haaretz:
The London-based, pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat reported over the weekend that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has stipulated three conditions for reconciliation. First, that Hamas dismantle its military wing; second, that there be no foreign involvement in the administration of the Gaza Strip; and third, that any money for restoration and development only be channeled through the Palestinian government.
See Avi Issacharoff and Prof. Eyal Zisser, who argue that Hamas appears to be tired of running Gaza and wants to adopt a Hezbollah-style role — something Israel must not allow to happen.
If you’re waiting for a Palestinian “Altalena moment,” it already happened in 2007.
2. Israel wants the US to shut down the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington. According to Israeli media reports:
[The plan] is meant to punish the Palestinians for their recent diplomatic advances, including their successful bid to join Interpol, the world’s largest police organization, and their ongoing efforts to have Israeli leaders tried at the International Criminal Court . . .
Since the US does not recognize Palestinian statehood, there is not formal embassy in Washington. The PLO has a diplomatic mission on Wisconsin Avenue that serves as de facto embassy.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Swedish police arrested detained 50 people during a neo-Nazi march in Goteborg on Yom Kippur. Associated Press coverage.
4. Tweet of the day from HonestReporting.
Why didn't the media tell us this part of the story? @AP @Reuters @nytimes @washingtonpost @AFP @CNN @cnni @BBCWorld @Independent pic.twitter.com/OpCVTdjFDV
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 1, 2017
Israel and the Palestinians
• The latest talk of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation is re-opening decade-old wounds and blood feuds in Gaza, notes Reuters.
• Haaretz: A generation gap emerges among the Golan Druze.
“Young Druze are not as connected to their Syrian background,” he says. “Unlike their grandparents and even parents, they’ve never visited family in Syria; they speak Hebrew and know Israeli society well.”
The Syrian civil war has brought these divisions even more to the fore, since some members of the younger generation perceive their grandparents’ hero, Syrian President Bashar Assad, as a murderous dictator.
• Draw your own conclusions . . .
– US ambassador says ‘settlements are part of Israel’
– US distances itself from Trump’s ambassador to Israel over ‘2%’ remark
• Helluva video from UN Watch.
EPIC: UN heads turn & eyes bulge in stunned disbelief as Palestinian hero Mosab Yousef exposes PLO lies. Full video: https://t.co/hetjPgtIbM pic.twitter.com/onWngf1bSG
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 27, 2017
Around the World
• Jerusalem Post: New York state is probing Deutsche Bank for links to Palestinian terror group.
“As part of our policy, we are making inquiries of Deutsche Bank,” Matthew Sweeney, a spokesman for the Office of the New York State Comptroller, said after The Jerusalem Post revealed the four accounts the Marxist Leninist Party of Germany holds at Deutsche Bank and the party’s purported fund-raising for its partner in the recent German election – the pro- BDS entity the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
• According to the Daily Telegraph, activists from a Jeremy Corbyn-backed group ‘hounded’ a Glasgow Jew out of business for selling Israeli products.
Mr Corbyn is a patron and former chairman of the London-based Palestine Solidarity campaign and remains a prominent supporter.
The treatment of Mr Ayalon, who claims he has been hounded out of Glasgow by the Scottish group, will intensify the row over anti-Semitism that has engulfed the Labour party during Mr Corbyn’s stint as leader.
• A think tank report by the Henry Jackson Society found that British universities had events featured extremist speakers 110 times in the past academic year.
• Puerto Rico’s Jews turn to helping neighbors ravaged by Hurricane Maria. Meanwhile, Israeli technology will help Puerto Rico deal with post-hurricane water scarcity.
Most of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents have been without electricity for 11 days and reports indicate the island’s aged electrical grid could be out of service for months. One early estimate says rebuilding could cost $40-$80 billion. Sixteen people were killed in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria slammed into the US territory days after Hurricane Irene.
• Denmark deployed deployed troops to guard Copenhagen’s main synagogue and Israeli embassy during Yom Kippur.
• UK university ‘censors’ Holocaust survivor’s talk over Israel-Nazi comparison.
• U. of Cape Town debates academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. One South African education activist says the proposed boycott would hit “poor black students disproportionately.”
• Jewish human rights group slams Massachusetts school district for disciplining a high school teacher who had the nerve to educate students about anti-Semitism (after a swastika was posted on a wall).
• Choices, choices, choices:
– Top-ranked Israeli tennis player Dudi Sela leaves match early for Yom Kippur
– With racial justice march set for Yom Kippur, these Jewish groups will participate in other ways
– Rescheduled concert clashes with Yom Kippur
– For Nebraska long snapper Jordan Ober, a Yom Kippur dilemma
• Actress Greta Gerwig, considered an Oscar front-runner for directing “Lady Bird,” told the New York Post she regrets signing a BDS letter which called on New York’s Lincoln Center to ban an Israeli performance in July.
“To the End of the Land,” which was produced by Israel’s Habima National Theater and the Cameri Theater of Tel Aviv, went on as scheduled.
Media Matters
• Welcome to the age of cheap overseas information:
Content farmers in the Philippines, Pakistan, Macedonia (of course), and beyond are launching websites and Facebook pages aimed at Americans in niches such as politics, mental health, marijuana, American muscle cars, and more.
Based on Facebook engagement and other metrics, some of these overseas publishers are now beating their American counterparts. In the process they’re building an industry centered on producing and exporting cheap (and sometimes false) information targeted at the US.
• Whether you’re a citizen journalist, professional reporter, or editor, here are 10 questions to ask before covering mis- and dis-information
Commentary/Analysis
• Over at the Irish Times, Israeli Ambassador to Dublin Ze’ev Boker fisks Mark Murphy‘s take on Israeli security precautions.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jonathan Spyer: Israel is going to war in Syria to fight Iran because nobody else will
– Amb. Ron Prosor: Israel must not let Arab states hijack UNESCO
– Charles Bybelezer: The peace process: The intersection of diplomatic and political folly, moral equivalency and terrorism
– Josh Mitnick: Not so fast on Fatah-Hamas unity
– New York Post (staff-ed): Interpol’s invitation to terrorism
– Eliora Katz: France may finally be getting serious about anti-Semitic violence (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY Walter Watzpatzkowski; Corbyn via YouTube/BLIGHTY TV; Puerto Rico via YouTube/CBS News; Gerwig via YouTube/Entertainment Weekly; social media CC0 Pixabay;
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