Today’s Top Stories
1. Raising the prospect of early elections, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned in protest against the unofficial ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas. The departure of Yisrael Beiteinu and the party’s five Knesset seats leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition with a barely-there 61-59 majority. So what happens next?
Political jostling for the Defense Ministry has already begun, with Education Minister Naftali Bennett and several Likud ministers claiming they are Liberman’s rightful heir.
However, there is also a chance that Netanyahu will choose to hold an election immediately, rather than try to keep the coalition together with a one-seat majority.
A senior Likud source said that there is no reason to call for elections, and that Netanyahu will retain the defense portfolio for himself.
We had a little photoshop fun in the office today . . .
Breaking News:
More in today's IDNS… pic.twitter.com/lYmCHB3L9W
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 14, 2018
2. An “unofficial” ceasefire went into effect, bringing a respite from rocket barrages, sirens and air strikes. Southern Israel returned to “normal,” Gazans celebrated “victory,” and the UN Security took no action after discussing the crisis. More at the Wall St. Journal (click via Twitter). See also Ynet coverage of yesterday’s cabinet deliberations.
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3. Moshe Lion was elected mayor of Jerusalem, defeating fellow city council member Ofer Berkovitch in yesterday’s runoff election.
Lion — Jerusalem’s first mayor of Sephardi descent — is a former accountant who in 1996 was appointed managing director of the Prime Minister’s Office (during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term). He became a member of the Jerusalem city council in 2013 after failing to unseat incumbent mayor Nir Barkat. Don’t expect the new mayor to enjoy much of a honeymoon period. Globes explains why:
Lion’s party did not win a single council seat, thus making the work of forming a council coalition very difficult.
See Ynet for the outcomes of other municipal runoffs. And don’t bother parsing the results for national trends. As Reuters notes, “many candidates run as independents or on non-traditional party lists, making it difficult to gauge any broader political impact from the results.”
4. How are news audiences digesting the Israel-Hamas media war? Our very own Daniel Pomerantz discussed the issue on i24 News along with Peace Now’s Yariv Oppenheimer.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Israeli media reports put the number of Israelis injured during the two days of rocket attacks at 108. Most were lightly wounded or suffering from shock.
• Worth reading: The mind-boggling damage caused to a Netivot home by a single piece of shrapnel highlights the destructive power of Palestinian rockets. Nobody was hurt because the family living there got away in time — which is exactly why you haven’t heard about this.
• The IDF arrested a Palestinian man who was throwing grenades near the Gaza border fence yesterday.
• The IDF censor couldn’t prevent the spread of identifying info about Lt. Col. M. on social media after the elite soldier was killed in this week’s Gaza intelligence mission gone awry. As this roundup went to press, a gag order on his name remained in place. Ynet took a deep dive look at the issues of security, sensitivity, rumors and misinformation.
The IDF Censor has not yet surrendered to the forces of time and technology. This unacceptable phenomenon raises its head time after time, and as of right now, there is no one who can stop it. Nevertheless, the Censor does not intend to change the instructions. The incident in Gaza on Sunday was not the first time it happened. Bereaved families say they were informed of their sons deaths in military operations after reading anonymous WhatsApp messages on many occasions. Other parents said they had a breakdown after seeing their child’s name accidentally appear on a list of casualties spread through social networks.
• The Daily Beast discussed Iron Dome and civil defense with Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitz, the outgoing commander of Israel’s Aerial Defense and one of the architects of Israel’s anti-missile defense strategy.
• The US is now offering a $5 million reward for the capture of Hamas leader Salah Arouri. He is currently the deputy chairman of the Hamas politburo best known for masterminding the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014, which triggered the last war in Gaza. Per the Jerusalem Post:
Arouri, who is believed to be living in Dahiyeha — a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital of Beirut after being kicked out of Qatar in 2017 — is reportedly working with Qassem Soleimani the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force.
The US also blacklisted Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s son, Jawad. More on the terror designations at Reuters.
Window Into Israel
• The Knesset Ethics Committee suspended Oren Hazan for six weeks after the Likud MK insulted a Defense Ministry official. If Hazan’s name rings a bell, it’s because the BBC used the attention-seeking lawmaker to smear Israel earlier this year.
• The Bank of Israel’s Deputy Governor, Nadine Baudot-Trajtenberg, was promoted to acting Governor after Karnit Flug’s five-year term came to end. Globes reports that Amir Yaron, who was tapped to replace Flug, is still working his way through the bureaucratic approvals process.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News looked back on Flug’s term.
Around the World
• Questioning the need for increased security at Cardiff’s biggest synagogue, Labour Welsh politician Jenny Rathbone blamed antisemitism on the Israeli government. The Jewish Chronicle obtained a recording of the Corbynista’s comments.
[Rathbone] also said that rising antisemitism in Britain was the result of “the failure to come to a peace settlement around Palestine and Israel”.
Ms Rathbone suggested the behaviour of Israel “drives peoples to be hostile to the Jewish community in this country”.
• According to FBI stats, hate crimes in the US rose 17 percent last year, which the Washington Post says was “fueled in part by more police departments reporting hate crime data to the FBI.”
More than half of hate crimes, about 3 out of every 5, targeted a person’s race or ethnicity, while about 1 out of 5 targeted their religion.
Of the more than 7,000 incidents reported last year, 2,013 targeted black Americans, while 938 targeted Jewish Americans . . .
Anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 37 percent in 2017.
• Do divisions over antisemitism threaten the future of the Women’s March?
Commentary
• Plenty of spilled ink and burnt pixels weighing in on the Gaza situation . . .
– Ron Ben-Yishai: This is not how you create deterrence
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas prefers to preserve ‘achievements’ over all-out war
– Amos Harel: Netanyahu is willing to take a big risk for quiet on the Gaza border
– Lahav Harkov: Ceasefire shows politics don’t always come first
– Yaakov Katz: Netanyahu as defense minister is too much. There are options
Featured image: CC BY Georgie Pauwels; Iron Dome CC BY-NC Israel Defense Forces; Cardiff CC BY-NC-ND Robert Moranelli;
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