Today’s Top Stories
1. Planned Hezbollah terror attack in Haifa thwarted.
The plot was foiled after the main defendant, Diab Kahamuz, forgot where he had hidden the explosives, which were later discovered.
2. In diplomatic speak, there are various words one can use to criticize other countries. In unusually harsh language, the US State Dept. “strongly condemned” Israeli plans to advance 98 homes in the West Bank settlement of Shilo.
Note the same wording the White House recently used to “strongly condemn” Russian and Syrian air strikes on Aleppo.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. The Israeli Navy intercepted the women’s boat to Gaza and towed the Dutch-flagged Zaytouna-Olivia to Ashdod without incident late yesterday afternoon. According to AP, 11 of the women will be detained for about 96 hours, then deported. Another two women, both journalists from Al Jazeera, were already deported.
Perhaps I missed something, but I haven’t seen any indication in the news or at the Women’s Boat to Gaza website that the yacht was carrying any humanitarian aid. If you’re wondering about the absence of footage from the Zaytouna-Olivia, the Jerusalem Post adds:
Much to the international media’s dismay the IDF has not released any footage of Wednesday’s takeover.
The Navy also reportedly cut off the boat’s communication before the take over, preventing the on board Al Jazeera corespondent from broadcasting live.
4. New York Times Op-Ed Blames Shimon Peres for . . . Everything: Hanan Ashrawi’s entitled to express her opinion, not distort history.
5. Grand Opening for HonestReporting’s New York Office: Supporters, media professionals, students, and mission alumni joined board members and our East Coast director Julie Hazan as we opened our new office in the Big Apple.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• An Israeli Air Force pilot was killed making a crash landing after an air strike on Gaza yesterday. The air force is examining why Capt. Ohad Cohen Nov’s F-16 caught fire, and whether there was malfunction in the ejection system. The flight navigator successfully ejected. Cohen Nov is survived by a young daughter and pregnant wife.
• Just before this roundup was published, Israeli media reported that a Gaza rocket was fired at Israel, landing in an open area and causing no injuries or damage. It was the second straight day Israel was hit.
• The PA transferred NIS 590 million to the Israel Electric Corporation. It’s the first of 48 installments of to pay off its NIS 2 billion debt.
• Israel arrested seven Palestinian youths “on suspicion of developing explosive devices and using them to target Israelis” at Rachel’s Tomb. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• Sign of the times?
Saudi Arabia unblocks online access to the Jerusalem Post
• HBO to produce TV series about the 2014 abduction and murder of three Israeli teens which led to the Operation Protective Edge. Israel HaYom explains:
According to available details, the show’s protagonist is an idealistic Shin Bet investigator. The plot depicts the escalating violence following the teens’ abduction and brutal murder from his point of view.
The series will be filmed in Hebrew and star Israeli actors, but will be adapted to English prior to its broadcast in the U.S.
• Worth reading: The Washington Post accompanied a busload of Gazans who obtained permission to make a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount.
Around the World
• A Spanish court declared a city council’s boycott of Israel illegal. The Jerusalem Post describes the ruling as a “massive blow” to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. The ruling was the culmination of months of legal battles waged by ACOM, a pro-Israel organization combating BDS in Spain.
According to ACOM, the High Court upheld, “that the city council lacks competencies to decree an international boycott and to alter the European Directive and the national law on public procurement.
“In addition the High Court expands on the blatant unconstitutional discrimination and lack of neutrality that such a boycott would represent.”
• Portuguese diplomat Antonio Guterres has the inside track on succeeding Ban Ki-moon as the UN’s next secretary-general. The UN Security Council threw its support behind Guterres, who previously served as Portugal’s prime minister, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and president of the Socialist International. He already has Israel’s thumbs-up.
What happens next? The New York Times explains:
Mr. Guterres will face a formal Council vote on Thursday morning and will then have his name submitted to the 193-member General Assembly for approval, which will most likely happen next week.
• Canada’s University of Lethbridge is looking to fire a tenured professor over anti-Semitic posts and YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories:
The Facebook post showed an Orthodox Jew in a headlock and text calling for the extermination of all Jews . . .
Hall co-hosts a YouTube show called “False Flag Weekly News” promoting theories that Jews and Zionists have been behind a series of “false flag” terror events, beginning with the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
• The Times of Israel discussed European anti-Semitism with Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel, who has researched and written extensively on the topic.
A lot of people express concerns that they would not be allowed to criticize Israel without being labeled as anti-Semites…
Yes. And remarkably, in the material that we reviewed, this concern is expressed exclusively by authors of letters that are actually anti-Semitic. None of the authors of the letters that criticized Israel without being anti-Semitic voiced any concerns that they could falsely be accused of Jew-hatred. It is the anti-Semites who actually commit the kind of false accusation which they claim to be a victim of, in order to deny their hatred of Jews. This implies a victim-perpetrator-inversion, which is a historically deep-rooted pattern in the standard repertoire of anti-Semitic constructions. Already in the 19th century anti-Semites accused Jews to use their alleged control over the media to censor and delegitimize anti-Jewish criticism.
• Argentinian activist and politician Luis D’Elia to stand trial for inciting anti-Semitic hatred on his radio show and on Twitter.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading (or watching): Britain’s former chief rabbi, Jonathan Sack discusses anti-Semitism today. How does Israel fit in?
The ultimate weapon of the new antisemitism is dazzling in its simplicity. It goes like this. The Holocaust must never happen again. But Israelis are the new Nazis; the Palestinians are the new Jews; all Jews are Zionists. Therefore the real antisemites of our time are none other than the Jews themselves. And these are not marginal views. They are widespread throughout the Muslim world, including communities in Europe, and they are slowly infecting the far left, the far right, academic circles, unions, and even some churches. Having cured itself of the virus of antisemitism, Europe is being reinfected by parts of the world that never went through the self-reckoning that Europe undertook once the facts of the Holocaust became known.
• Turkish columnists Guven Sak and Yusuf Kanli pay tribute to Shimon Peres.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– A.J. Caschetta: It’s time to break up the Quartet
– Tammi Rossman Benjamin: Anti-Semitism on campus isn’t just uncivil, it’s intolerant
– Amb. Mark Regev: Remember Cable Street, when labour movement and Zionists were allies
– Jerusalem Post (staff-ed): A royal visit
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Azad Essa, who insists that Peres was no Mandela. (Heh. If Nelson Mandela Were Alive, He’d Be Run Out of Ramallah.)
Image of Haifa CC BY-NC-ND Ioreth_ni_Balor; Guterres via UN Photo/Mark Garten;
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