Today’s Top Stories
1. Two Israelis were killed and at least six injured in a Palestinian drive-by shooting at a light rail station in Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill neighborhood. Police Sgt.-Maj. Yosef Kirma, a 29 year-old member of a special patrol unit, and Levana Melihi, a Jerusalem resident in her 60s, were killed. The terrorist was was killed while firing on people during a brief chase. Later in the day, Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Picking up on Palestinian media, it was reported in Haaretz that the gunman was due to begin serving a four-month prison sentence for prior charges, and was linked to the Mourabitoun, an outlawed Islamist group whose members demonstrate on Temple Mount whenever Jews visit the holy site — which would explain his last Facebook post.
2. Mahmoud Abbas was briefly hospitalized for a cardiac exam and catheterization, refusing to confirm earlier reports of heart troubles. The health scare may be what was behind Israeli media reports that Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is supposedly being tapped to succeed Abbas.
According to a Channel 2 report, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Jordanian King Abdullah II are at the head of the initiative and have spoken to Abbas personally while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent representatives to discuss the issue with the PA president, who celebrated his 81st birthday this year . . .
Kidwa, 63, is a member of Fatah and has served as a former Palestinian foreign minister and a former deputy UN-Arab League envoy to Syria. He is head of the Yasser Arafat Foundation, established after Arafat’s death in 2004.
(The Associated Press looked at other possible successors.)
Palestinian official: President Abbas may have to go to Jordan for additional medical tests and treatment.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) October 8, 2016
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3. Amid anger that UK public money is being given to terrorists, Britain froze millions in foreign aid to the PA.
The decision by the Department for International Development means £25 million in cash is being withheld this year – a third of the total aid sent to Palestine. The majority goes to charities in the region.
Whitehall insiders insisted the payments to the Palestinian Authority should re-start next year once the investigation is complete.
4. Aussie Radio Host Can’t Contain His Israel Hate: Peter Goers is so consumed with hate for to notice why Australia has close ties with the Jewish state.
5. Radio New Zealand Airs Unbalanced Anti-Israel Tirade: Radio New Zealand has once again airs a litany of unchallenged lies in a one-sided discussion –this time about the recent women’s boat to Gaza.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• UN Security Council to hold special meeting on Israeli settlements this coming Friday. Haaretz coverage:
Foreign Ministry officials fear it will turn into an international demonstration of condemnation of the government’s policy in the territories and set the stage for an anti-settlement resolution in the Security Council after the U.S. elections.
• According to unconfirmed Israeli media reports, Ankara has chosen Kemal Okem, a foreign policy expert, as Turkey’s next ambassador to Israel. Jerusalem will select its ambassador to Ankara after this month’s Jewish holidays.
• A kite with a camera attached briefly crossed into Israel from Gaza. It was pulled back after the IDF fired warning shots.
• This is a gripping, and very moving video as the heroic Magen David Adom medics talk about 365 days of terror (with English subtitles).
Around the World
• Jewish students at the U. of Michigan are ‘deeply offended’ by an ‘apartheid wall’ and mock Israeli checkpoints erected on campus during Rosh HaShanah.
• Man wielding axe threatened Jewish worshippers with an axe during Rosh HaShanah in the Manchester area.
• European human rights chiefs order the British press NOT to reveal when terrorists are Muslims in crackdown on freedom of speech (!?)
• A Pakistani scholar’s speaking tour of Australia was cut short after a 2012 video emerged of Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai saying peace will only come to the world when the Jews are wiped out. The Sydney Morning Herald explains:
“Muslims are not terrorists; they are the lovers of peace and preachers of peace. And all the troubles that exist around the world are because of the Jews. When the Jews are wiped out, then the world would be purified,” he says, according to a translation by a pro-Israel media monitor, the Middle East Media Research Institute, and independently verified by Fairfax Media.
Commentary/Analysis
• Mayors Anne Hidalgo and Ron Huldai of Paris and Tel Aviv respectively, penned a joint op-ed in YNet about fighting terror and pluralism.
• Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon responded to Friday’s harsh New York Times staff-ed.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Eli Lake: Israel braces for Obama’s parting gift to Palestinians
– Amos Harel: Russian missile deployment facilitates Hezbollah’s weapons smuggling
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Gaza’s radicals want Israel to topple Hamas
– Eugene Kontorovich: The problem with using the tax code to punish Israeli settlements
– Yossi Melman: Hamas understands Israel has changed the rules of the game
– Yoav Zitun: The game with Hamas has changed
– David Weinberg: Obama clubbing Netanyahu with ‘Peres legacy’
– Jonathan Tobin: No good deed goes unpunished
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas ‘The Jew’
– Toby Greene: Why now is the time for Israel to transform ties with the Arab world
– Elliott Abrams: Reading the Jerusalem Post in Riyadh
– Seth Frantzman: What happened to Palestinian municipal elections?
– Ruth Wisse: No apologies for being a Jewish nation (click via Google News)
– Ariela Ringel Hoffman: It’s not the flotilla, it’s Gaza
– Raphael Ahren: Incoming UN chief a friend of Israel, but won’t shy away from criticism
– Eyal Zisser: The Yom Kippur War: A national turning point
– David Eligberg and Sue Farber: Israel deserves support, not sanctions
• For a sense of what Israel’s critics are saying, see James Zogby and Kate Shuttleworth.
Image of Musfai via YouTube/Kashif Mir; quill CC BY sure2talk;
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