Today’s Top Stories
*** BREAKING NEWS *** Shortly before this roundup was published, there were breaking reports of a stabbing attack in Jerusalem, by the Old City’s Damascus Gate.
1. In response to the latest terror attacks, Israel security forces began setting up checkpoints to entrances of flashpoint Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem, and called up Border Police reservists.Details at YNet.
Other measures the government announced: cancelling the permanent residency status of terrorists and their families living in Jerusalem, and not returning the bodies of terrorists killed in attacks.
2. Abbas to address Palestinians tonight.
3. This Sky News scoop makes my antennae twitch: Bahrain and the Gulf states are in talks to buy Iron Dome. Uncle Sam’s the middle man . . .
A deal for the whole of the GCC, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, would be worth tens, perhaps hundreds, of billions of dollars.
It would also include longer range interceptor missiles such as David’s Sling, and the Arrow I and Arrow II which are capable of intercepting supersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles – also a joint venture between Israel and the US.
4. NPR Interviews Family of “Dead” Palestinian Who is Actually Alive: A reporter’s fact-checking lapse and inability to challenge a blatant Palestinian lie muddies the water.
5. Palestinian Terror Wave: Horrible Headlines: What were the editors who came up with these clunkers thinking?
6. HR’s Simon Plosker discussed media coverage of the intifada with the JTA.
Israel and the Intifada
• Yesterday, an alert gas station attendant foiled a Palestinian stabbing attack in the northern town of Migdal HaEmek.
• In apparent defiance of Abbas, Fatah leaders visited the home of the terrorist who murdered Aharon Bennett and Nehemia Lavi in Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this month. More at YNet.
• Perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize committee is making John Kerry work harder for that award. The Secretary of State is planning a Mideast visit to cool down boiling Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Kerry also linked the terror attacks to Israeli settlement activity.
• The Israeli embassy in Berlin blasted the German media for its slanted terror coverage. The Jerusalem Post sums up the gist of a critical post on the embassy’s blog.
• AFP nonsense:
Jerusalem suffered its bloodiest day yet Tuesday in a wave of unrest, with at least three Israelis killed as Palestinian attackers shot at a bus and drove a car into pedestrians.
Baha Aliyan and Bilal Ranem didn’t “shoot at a bus.” As eyewitnesses described, the two terrorists boarded a bus with knives and a gun, and methodically attacked passengers, killing two.
• Jewish and Arab and medical staff at Hadassah Hospital treating Jews and Arabs alike always gives me a glimmer of hope for coexistence. But AP finds that families of terror victims and families of terrorists crossing paths in the wards puts strains coexistence.
• I agree with the Daily Mail‘s shortened caption for this AP photo. It’s better to look good than to feel good . . .
• I liked how Reuters called the situation a “smartphone intifada,” while the Times of Israel unpacks the social media component. The common denominator between these two reports is that there’s a new generation of Palestinians who not only oppose Israel but the Palestinian establishment as well.
Some of the assailants are so young they were not even born when the last uprising, or intifada, broke out in September 2000. They are a generation that has grown up on failed efforts towards Middle East peace, is angry with its own leadership and is losing faith in the prospect of a Palestinian state.
By the way, Vocativ rounded up some of the worst Palestinian cartoons encouraging attacks making the rounds on social media.
• Is the Internet key to stopping terror attacks?
• Here’s one way the intifada’s playing out as a religious war. Amichai Magen, of the Herzliya-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) told the Religion News Service that religious Jews “are grossly overrepresented in the number of victims of stabbings and vehicular terrorist attacks” because of Hamas and Islamic Jihad:
“These groups define the conflict as Muslims versus Jews and use anti-Semitic imagery. In the minds of the attackers, Orthodox Jews represent the Jewish people.”
They are also easy targets because of their distinctive dress and, said Magen, because they do not serve in the Israeli military, the place where less-religious Israelis typically learn self-defense.
• At a Hebron clash, a Palestinian set himself on fire trying to throw a Molotov cocktail. According to the Jerusalem Post, he suffered light to moderate injuries which I bet will pad Big Media’s casualty count “proving” the IDF uses excessive force.
• Strange days indeed . . .
Notable Israel boycott activist also leads pro-settler, pro-occupation group
• Intifada? No, it’s the rise of the machines, according to headline writers at The Australian:
• The BBC apologized for a radio report about the deadly arson attack in the Palestinian village of Duma. The Beeb reported at the time that Israel only imposed administrative detention against Palestinian suspects even though three Jewish extremists were already being detained without trial.
• Visting Indian President Pranab Mukherjee addressed the Knesset.
Commentary/Analysis
• Yaakov Amidror calls on Israeli security forces to not worry about critics crying excessive force:
On Tuesday, a foreign journalist asked me why security forces shot the female terrorist at the Afula bus station last Friday instead of taking her down with non-lethal means. In response, I asked the journalist what she would think if her son was one of the security personnel facing the knife-wielding terrorist. She answered honestly, saying she would not want her son to be put in such a dilemma.
So, with all due respect to pencil-pushing critics sitting in their air-conditioned offices, we must let our security forces do their job unencumbered.
• Worth reading: Jay Nordlinger lays out why he’s Hung Up on Israel: An explanation for the sincere.
• Thumbs up to the Daily Telegraph for giving an op-ed soapbox to Israel’s acting ambassador to the UK, Eitan Na’eh.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Boaz Bismuth: 1929 vs. today
– Alex Fishman: The intifada of the young and hopeless
– Ben-Dror Yemini: Between Ankara and Jerusalem: A festival of incitement and blood
Image of Iron Dome CC BY-NC flickr/Israel Defense Forces
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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