Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli officials are keeping silent amid reports of a powerful computer virus striking Iranian infrastructure in recent days.
Iranian infrastructure and strategic networks have come under attack in the last few days by a computer virus similar to Stuxnet but “more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated,” and Israeli officials are refusing to discuss what role, if any, they may have had in the operation, an Israeli TV report said Wednesday.
The report came hours after Israel said its Mossad intelligence agency had thwarted an Iranian murder plot in Denmark, and two days after Iran acknowledged that President Hassan Rouhani’s mobile phone had been bugged.
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2. Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro says he wants to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem.
3. According to Israel HaYom, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is seeking to end the international observer mission in Hebron. The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was established in 1994 after Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians worshiping in the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Recently, however, there has been a growing number of complaints alleging its members are systematically and violently targeting the Jewish community in Hebron.
In the News
• Moral of the story: If you burn tires for seven months, the laws of supply and demand will catch up with you.
In Gaza, tire shortage hits motorists but not protesters
• “A kindergarten in southern Israel was evacuated Thursday morning after a teacher spotted a suspicious object in the playground that was later found to be an explosive device, apparently flown into Israel from the nearby Gaza Strip, officials said,” per the Times of Israel.
• Israel’s Attorney General ruled out razing the homes of mentally ill terrorists, arguing that “in cases where the attacker suffers mental illness, there is no deterrence from the threat of destroying the home.”
• The Jerusalem Post picked up on a very sobering assessment of what the next Israel-Hezbollah war would look like. We’re talking about an awful lot of rockets causing an awful lot of death and damage, even in the best case scenario. See the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s report and judge for yourself.
• With the foiling of an Iranian plot to assassinate dissidents in Denmark, will Copenhagen’s anger divide the European Union on Iranian sanctions?
• A Hamas goon was killed in an accidental explosion in Gaza today. Does Daoud Jneid still qualify for 72 virgins?
• Israeli officials traveled to Chad to discuss renewing ties, according to Israeli media reports.
• Following up on this week’s Israeli municipal election results, Aliza Bloch defeated incumbent Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul, to become the city’s first female mayor. And what do electoral changes in West Bank communities say about the settler movement?
• Authorities say fraudsters are trying to cash in on the Pittsburgh synagogue tragedy, so heads up.
Pittsburgh Public Safety said police have received reports about people being approached in person, by phone and via email and social media to donate money to support victims and injured officers. Some of the would-be scammers have sought personal credit card information.
See also the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which listed the FBI’s tips to avoid being scammed.
• Amid the furor raised by her claims that that Israel is to blame for rising antisemitism, Baroness Jenny Tonge stepped down as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
• “One of Toronto’s most prestigious private schools for girls has fired its head and issued an apology in the wake of a controversial and deliberately provocative touring adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice,” which parents viewed as antisemitic.
• California police are investigating the vandalizing of an Irvine synagogue as a hate crime.
• Who bugged Kiev’s main synagogue?
Commentary
• Several Jewish newspapers published a joint editorial urging American Jewish solidarity in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. The editorial, which was published in 15 Jewish papers, was drafted by Jane Eisner and Dovid Efune, editors in chief of The Forward and The Algemeiner respectively, and signed by 17 leading Jewish American journalists.
As journalists, we hold a variety of opinions about politics in this country and in Israel; the American Jewish community is diverse, and those differences are reflected on the pages of its media.
In coming together now, we are not erasing those differences, but rising above them, to issue a call for solidarity and respect, and asking our political and communal leaders to do the same.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Raphael Ahren: Giant leap for Israel-Gulf ties can’t shatter the Palestinian glass ceiling
– Zvi Bar’el: With or without Israel’s help, foiled Iran terror plot puts Europe in a nuclear bind
– Dr. Anat Roth: Block the PA’s hostile takeover of Khan al-Ahmar
– Jewish Chronicle (staff-ed): A climate of hate leads only one way
– Amb. Danny Danon: We can learn from Israel’s effective anti-terror methods
– Ruth Wisse: The many faces of Jew-hatred (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-NC Zach Korb; Hezbollah via YouTube/France 24 English; fraud CC0 pxhere; Kiev via Wikimedia Commons;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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