Today’s Top Stories
1. After outing himself as the Israeli journalist who sexually harassed Danielle Berrin, veteran journalist Ari Shavit resigned from Haaretz and from Channel 10 where he offered commentary and analysis. Meanwhile, a second woman is accusing Shavit of similar harassment.
Last week, Berrin, a Jewish American journalist created a stir by describing in the Jewish Journal an account of harassment by a reporter she didn’t name. Shavit then acknowledged that it was him. In a new article, Berrin dismissed Shavit’s response as insufficient:
Yesterday, Ari Shavit offered an apology — to no one in particular — for “misconstruing the interaction between us,” which he says he understood as “flirtation.”
His claim is absurd. The only thing I wanted from Ari Shavit was an interview about his book. No person of sound judgment would have interpreted his advances on me as anything other than unwanted, aggressive sexual contact.
2. Fed up with his over-the-top BDS shenanigans, American Express pulled out of a $4 million sponsorship of Roger Waters’ latest concert tour. The New York Post got the scoop:
An AmEx source told us: “Roger is putting on a huge show. The company was asked to sponsor his tour for $4 million, but pulled out because it did not want to be part of his anti-Israel rhetoric.”
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3. Baroness Jenny Tonge quit the Liberal Democrats after the party suspended her for hosting a noxious event organized by the Palestinian Return Center in which speakers said Jews provoked the Holocaust and compared Israel to Islamic State.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accepted a free trip to visit Bashar Assad in 2009, paid for by the same Palestinian Return Center. Corbyn was one of several back-benchers in a delegation of MPs from several parties “which thanked Assad for his country’s housing of half a million Palestinian refugees.”
4. Muddling the Mayhem of a Palestinian Protest: No, pro-Israel students were not equally to blame for “violent clashes” with the pro-Palestinian protesters at a campus event.
Israel and the Palestinians
• UN Watch is trying to get Michael Lynk suspended from his job as UN rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories. It seems that Lynk, a Canadian expert on international law, failed to disclose when he applied for the post that he was
a member of the board of directors of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations and claims that he was on the advisory board of the “Canadian- Palestinian Education Exchange,” which promotes events such as the “4th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week.”
UN Watch concluded by noting that Lynk was also “on the advisory board of Friends of Sabeel North America, another pro-Palestinian organization.”
In his first report as rapporteur, Lynk said he plans to probe Israel’s treatment of human rights groups.
• Mahmoud Abbas met in Qatar with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. According to the New York Times, the PA and Hamas leaders agreed that they need to mend fences, but nothing else. Abbas was in Qatar to attend the funeral of Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani. Tweet of the day from Aaron David Miller:
Unity talks Hamas/Fatah? kidding right? Real unity wld mean one gun/one negotiating position. Ain't gonna happen https://t.co/gYPN59XRsm
— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) October 28, 2016
• While barrel bombs rain on Aleppo, what keeps Bashar Assad awake at night?
Syria to UNESCO: Stop Israeli dig in Syrian Golan
• Last night, an Israeli driving near Karnei Tzur, in the West Bank came under gunfire. No injuries were reported and the IDF is searching the area. On Friday night, a Palestinian man was shot trying to run over, then stab Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint near Ofra, a settlement north of Jerusalem.
• Whoda thought? The family of Saher Habash, a former aid to Yasser Arafat, has disowned a niece who advocates for Israel, converted to Christianity and even has the word “Israel” tattooed across her shoulder blades in Hebrew. The woman, who now goes by the name Sandra Solomon, shared her story with the Israeli media.
“I grew up in a home that hated the Jews, heiled Hitler and praised the Holocaust,” she told Channel 2.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu’s going to earn frequent flyer miles over the next three months. He announced visits to Australia, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Bibi also announced that President Reuven Rivlin will traveling to India in two weeks. More on the story at the Jerusalem Post.
• NPR takes note of an Israeli push to get more Arabs into business management positions.
Around the World
• A Stanford Daily poll found “undergraduates would oppose a hypothetical ASSU ballot initiative urging the university to divest from companies supplying the Israeli Defense Forces.”
• A French court convicted a Kuwaiti student of hate crime over an anti-Semitic Facebook post. JTA coverage.
• Scotland Yard: Muslims who lifted Hezbollah flags during the recent Ashura holiday violated UK anti-terrorism laws. More at Asharq al-Awsat.
Commentary/Analysis
• Jonathan Schanzer discussed with the Wall St. Journal the possibilities of President Barack Obama recognizing a Palestinian state or taking other game-changing measures regarding the Mideast conflict in his final weeks in office.
See related commentary by Charles Krauthammer and Michael Doran.
• Memo to Roger Cohen: You write that the ball’s in Israel’s court to ease up on the “humiliation and hardship” of checkpoints, as if they just mushroomed overnight on their own, and you urge President Obama to present US principles to the UN Security Council simply because “Israel is strongly opposed. That is the best reason for doing it.”
It’s easy, Roger, to demand Israel take all the risks for peace from the comfort of your New York-area home, isn’t it?
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Marc Goldberg: Forgetting Palestine
– Avi Issacharoff: Abbas-Dahlan rivalry is a Palestinian soap opera with immense implications
– National Post (staff-ed): The anti-Israel virus that pervades the UN
– Melanie Phillips: Palestinians step up the jihad of the lie
– Yaakov Katz: Do UNESCO and ISIS seek the same – deletion of Jewish history?
– Herb Keinon: The changing anti-Israel UN voting patterns
– Ruthie Blum: The PA’s war on the Balfour Declaration
– Smadar Perry: Lebanese General Michel Aoun is bad news for Israel
– Dore Feith: When bashing Israel trumps helping gays (click via Google News)
– David Aaronvitch: Tonge’s obnoxious ideas on Jews set a terrible example
Image: CC BY-NC-SA Erio; Shavit via YouTube/Haaretz.com; Berrin via Twitter/Berrin; Tonge via YouTube/PresstvFans;; Solomon screengrab via Channel 2;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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