Today’s Top Stories
1. UNESCO, the United Nations committee responsible for “cultural understanding,” has given preliminary approval for a resolution that negates the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The proposed resolution refers to parts of the site by the Muslim terms, “Al-Aqsa Mosque” and “Haram al-Sharif” and emphasizes the historic and religious significance of the site to Islam, but makes no mention of the Jewish history at the same site. It also condemns Israeli interference with the Waqf, the Jordanian body that administers the Muslim sites. The resolution makes no mention that the Muslim sites in question were built on top of the remains of the Jewish “Great Temple” several hundred years after its destruction by the Romans in the year 70 CE.
2. European leaders and the United Nations have been pressuring FIFA (the International Federation of Association Football – that’s “soccer” for you Americans…) to take action against Israeli soccer teams based in the West Bank, saying that such teams are “without validity” and “illegal under international law.” In the meantime, a Palestinian soccer team honors the terrorist who shot and killed two Israelis in Jerusalem this week. This Tweet from the Arab-48 news network captures the team praising the attacker. So far, no reaction from EU leaders or the United Nations. Why the double standard?
#صورة نادي هلال #القدس ينعى #أسد_الأقصى الشهيد مصباح أبو صبيح خلال مباراة على ملعب فيصل الحسيني اليوم pic.twitter.com/XjU5Ot7J0c
— 48 الإخبارية (@48nnews) October 10, 2016
3. Amidst rampant speculation over whether the United States will try to pressure Israel in the United Nations Security Council before President Obama leaves office, Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed in a phone call to Secretary of State John Kerry his expectation that the US will take no such step. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton expressed her opposition to any unilateral steps by the US against Israel at the UN. Kerry said the US has not made a decision.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Yom Kippur has come to Israel, and as usual, traffic came to a stop and bicycles took over the streets. Many don’t realize that there is actually no law closing the streets on Yom Kippur, it is simply a shared tradition that people spontaneously observe each year.
• In what may have been a terror attack, a car rammed a checkpoint, injuring two Israeli police officers. Police are investigating to determine the motives and perpetrators.
• Director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Dore Gold has resigned from his position for “personal issues.” Recalling a “flowering” in diplomatic relations, Gold said:
The role of director-general of the foreign ministry was a professional and personal peak in all the years that I served on the diplomatic front.
Mideast Matters
• Writing for The Hill, Salman Al-Ansari examines the growing relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. For 70 years the countries have adopted a pragmatic policy of avoiding direct confrontation and provocative acts, more recently Iran has provided a common enemy and a reason for security cooperation, and the countries share a history of quiet but substantial economic cooperation. In fact, there are currently hundreds of Jews from all over the world doing various kinds of work in the kingdom.
• Mohsen Bahrami, head of the Iranian space agency, has said that his country is interested in cooperating with NASA. Iran already has limited space capabilities. While scientific cooperation is usually a positive development between countries, John B. Sheldon, the chairman and president of Swiss-based consulting company ThorGroup GmbH, says there is evidence that Iran may want this access to space in order to set up a jamming program that could tactically limit the effectiveness of US satellites in the event of a future conflict.
Around the World
• Mayor of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo describes the situation as a “holocaust” in plea for world help. He accuses that “The international community is just watching and doing nothing.” In a stunning secret mission late last year, Israel evacuated the last Jews from Aleppo, thus bringing an end to the almost 3,000 year old Jewish community.
• Israeli aid teams are in Haiti, helping residents recover from a devastating hurricane. Some of the team was already in place: workers from the Israeli medical non-profit IsraAid were already in Haiti after having arrived six years ago, following an earthquake in 2010. Hurricane Matthew’s 145-mile-per-hour winds and torrential rains destroyed houses and entire villages as well as roads, bridges and other infrastructure on October 3 and 4.
Commentary/Analysis
• Using examples such as the obituary of Shimon Peres, Evelyn Gordon’s op-ed in Commentary Magazine examines some of the media mishaps of our age. Gordon posits the idea that some of what we read may be be more than subtle biases or innocent mistakes, but rather outright, intentional lying to the public.
• In a “staff-ed” (an opinion piece by the editorial staff), The Jerusalem Post disputes the popular notion in Washington that settlements in disputed territories are the main cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Harold Rhode: Why Russia and Iran are Abetting the Syrian Government
– Beverley Milton-Edwards, Brooking’s Institute: Headhunting for Hamas
Featured image: CC BY-SA Garry Knight;
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