Today’s Top Stories
1. As this roundup was published, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to meet this evening with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon in a last-ditch bid to save his tottering governing coalition. Following last week’s resignation of defense minister Avigdor Liberman, who opposed the PM’s ceasefire with Hamas, Netanyahu’s coalition shrank to a barely-there 61-59 Knesset majority. Kahlon leads the centrist Kulanu party, which has 10 seats, and Kahlon said last week he favors early elections.
Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett threatened to take his eight-seat Bayit Yehudi party out of the coalition if he is not appointed Defense Minister. Bennett is currently Minister of Education. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who leads the seven-seat Shas party, added further pressure on the PM by coming out for early elections.
If Netanyahu succeeds in holding together a coalition for the remainder of his four-year term, the next elections would be held in November, 2019. We’ll know more tonight . . .
2. Defying Israel and the US, Mahmoud Abbas signed paperwork to join a 11 nternational organizations and conventions, including the International Postal Union, with the forms to be formally submitted this week. The US does not recognize Palestinian statehood, and federal law requires Washington to stop funding organizations where the Palestinians have full membership.
Washington is mulling consequences.
3. Linda Sarsour: Jews who oppose antisemitic Muslim congresswoman have dual loyalties.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
In the News
• The US raised eyebrows by voting for the first time against a UN committee’s draft resolution denouncing the “illegal occupation” of the Golan Heights after years of US abstentions on the issue. AP adds that the UN General Assembly will vote on it in December. Ambassador Nikki Haley explained the shift in this statement. Could this augur US recognition of Israeli control over the Golan?
The resolution is plainly biased against Israel. Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone. The destructive influence of the Iranian regime inside Syria presents major threats to international security. ISIS and other terrorist groups remain in Syria. And this resolution does nothing to bring any parties closer to a peace agreement.
It was one of nine resolutions slamming Israel by the “Special Political and Decolonization Committee” on Friday. More at UN Watch.
• Jerusalem Post: “In an unprecedented move, Egyptian intelligence officials on Friday attended a Hamas rally for the Palestinians who were killed in last week’s clash with an elite IDF unit in the southern Gaza Strip.”
• Angela Merkel lobbied Romania not to relocate it embassy to Jerusalem. And Australia and Malaysia are at loggerheads over the possibility of Australia moving its embassy to Jerusalem (Aussie Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad’s opposition was simply because he’s an antisemite.) As if the Romanian and Australian embassies are any of Merkel and Mahathir’s concern . . .
• Stunning tweet from the Daily Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez.
We got a sense of how careful Israel was to avoid civilian casualties during the airstrikes in #Gaza. The Israeli army called one guy we met and spent 45 mins on the phone with him, getting him to evacuate his neighbours, before they blew up a Hamas media building next to his.
— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) November 15, 2018
• An elite IDF commando injured in last week’s Gaza-op gone-awry was released from the hospital. Doctors at Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center said the soldier, whose name hasn’t been released, is in “good condition for rehabilitation.”
• Palestinian shunned for selling land to Jews to be buried in Jewish cemetery.
• Was an Israeli agent killed in an Iranian air strike on Iraq’s Kurdish region?
• The Jerusalem Post picked up on the latest revelations from the Paris trial of 15 Hezbollah operatives accused of laundering massive amounts of drug money in Europe and South America. It seems they took advantage of weak German anti-terror finance policies to launder “as much as one million euros per week during the high point of its operation.” More on the trial at The National.
Window Into Israel
• The New York Times takes a closer look at how Netanyahu would fare if Israel goes to early elections.
• Per Israeli media reports, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife will reportedly be questioned as a suspect in a case involving suspicions she lied to the State Comptroller regarding the employment of a former aide-turned-state witness.”
Mrs. Netanyahu and an employee of the Prime Minister’s Office are already accused of fraudulently spending $100,000 in state funds to pay for catered meals. The trial, which began in October, moved to criminal arbitration on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s wife maintains her innocence.
• Meet Israel’s first Druze news anchorwoman, Gadeer Mreeh.
Around the World
• Drip drip drip: Since 2016, thousands of British Jews have applied for foreign passports, either because they want to retain EU citizenship after Brexit, or because they fear rising antisemitism and the likelihood of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. According to the Times of London, most inquiries have focused on Germany, Spain and Portugal, as well as Israel.
• Drip drip drip: British parliament hosted an Israel-hating Jordanian lawmaker who once praised a gunman who killed seven Israeli schoolgirls as a “hero,” the Daily Mail reports.
• Kentucky governor’s executive order bans state contracts to businesses supporting BDS.
• A drunk man sparked panic at a Baltimore performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” when he yelled “Heil Hitler, heil Trump” during an intermission. A number of people in the audience ran out fearing 58-year-old Anthony Derlunas was going to open fire. Before being ushered out of the theater, Derlunas told police a scene in the play reminded him of his hatred for the US president.
The police explanation for why Derlunas wasn’t charged with any crime puts a new twist on yelling fire in a crowded theater.
“As reprehensible as those words are, they are considered protected free speech because nobody was directly threatened,” police spokesman Matt Jablow said in an email.
• Police are investigating incidents of antisemitic graffiti on the campus of Cal. State Fullerton and at a Miami Beach synagogue.
Commentary
• Knesset member and former chief IDF spokesman Nachman Shai called for reforms in the IDF Spokesman’s Unit and the Military Censor in light of criticisms following last week’s Gaza violence.
During the difficult days this week, a flood of information from the field reached the public long before the authorized officials could respond. After this round of fighting, and with the clear expectation of additional rounds in the future, these two media organizations, which both deal with information – one disseminating it and the other in keeping it under wraps – must reexamine themselves. They will very soon be put to a new test, and they should be ready for it.
• A diverse group of British-Jewish thinkers were invited to share their thoughts on the evolving relationship between UK Jewry and Israel, whether there’s a ‘potentially seismic change’ in the way the community relates to and talks about Israel. They all weighed in at the Fathom Journal.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today:
– Amos Harel: Early elections will limit Netanyahu’s room for maneuver in Gaza
– Anshel Pfeffer: Why the timing of the Israeli election matters so much to Netanyahu and his rivals
– Lahav Harkov: How Netanyahu can save this coalition
– Avi Issacharoff: We should all hope the victories of Gaza’s Yahya Sinwar haven’t gone to his head
– Zev Chafets: Netanyahu made the right call on Gaza
– Dan Feferman: What is Hamas’s end-game? Escalation control
– Khaled Abu Toameh: Why renewed US sanctions on Iran are good news for Palestinians
– Amos Harel: Putin’s interests in Syria and Lebanon limit Israel’s options
– Elliott Abrams: Are American Jews disenchanted with Israel?
– Ben Shapiro: Intersectionality leads to ignoring antisemitism. Here’s why
– Soeren Kern: First Muslim women in US Congress misled voters about views on Israel
Featured image: CC BY woodleywonderworks;; Bennett via YouTube/CBS New York; Netanyahu via YouTube/VOA News; Kahlon via YouTube/Moshe Kahlon; Mreeh via YouTube/themedialine; Fiddler on the Roof via YouTube/guru006; Israeli flag via YouTube/Jewish National Fund of Canada British flag via YouTube/easyaccessenglish;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
Before you comment on this article, please note our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.
