Today’s Top Stories
*** Breaking news *** After this roundup was published, a Palestinian associated with Islamic State was arrested in Italy, accused of plotting to poison public drinking water. Developing . . .
1. Is Bashar Assad granting Syrian citizenship to thousands of Iranian and Hezbollah operatives? The Jerusalem Post picked up on an alarming MEMRI report.
The report explained that “systematic action by the regime to settle [them] throughout Syria” served two purposes: concealing the fighter’s presence and changing the country’s demography.
Concealing the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah fighters in southern Syria could be seen as contravening understandings reached between Israel and Russia to keep such groups away from the Jewish state’s northern border.
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2. According to Israeli media reports, a senior Israeli diplomat secretly met with Sudanese officials last year in a bid to renew ties. Sudan cut ties with Iran in 2016 and is thought to be seeking Israeli help in having US sanctions against the African state lifted. Veteran Sudanese journalist Wasil Ali noted the lack of denials from Khartoum.
It's now safe to say that #Sudan no longer views normalization with #Israel as a taboo. @BarakRavid explosive report on secret meetings in #Turkey between the 2 sides generated no denial so far in Khartoum.
— Wasil Ali – واصل علي (@wasilalitaha) November 28, 2018
3. In a show of support for BDS, the faculty of California’s Pitzer College voted to end its study abroad program with Haifa University. Inside Higher Ed reports that the issue now goes to the College Council for a vote. The JTA adds that the move may divide the private liberal arts school’s 1,000 students:
The Pitzer student senate will vote on a resolution this week that condemns the faculty vote for being taken without student input and singling out Israel among all of the school’s study abroad programs. It also criticizes the faculty for seeking the “advancement of a political agenda at the expense of students . . .”
In the News
• As this roundup was published, the Irish senate was due to debate and vote on legislation banning the import of goods and services from West Bank settlements.
• One Palestinian was killed in an unexplained explosion in the al-Bureij refugee camp. The building in the UNRWA-run camp is said to belong to Hamas. Last I saw, five people were injured and several others were missing.
• Survey finds 43 percent of Dutch Jews hide their identity, citing rising antisemitism.
• Spanish sports minister apologizes for canceling of water polo match against Israel due to BDS.
• Around the world: Israeli academics were disinvited from a conference in South Africa due to BDS pressure. An ‘antisemitism cover-up’ rocks Sweden‘s most prestigious medical institute. The former president of Georgia called a candidate’s Israeli aide a ‘dirty Jew.’ Several Jewish homes in Seattle were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.
Commentary
• Jonathan Marks weighs in on Pitzer College’s ivory tower anti-Israel insanity.
While it has become the norm to apply a double standard to Israel, an obsessive and exclusive focus on the deficiencies of the Jewish state can be anti-Semitic. Because the double standard is the norm, there is no reason to accuse anyone on Pitzer’s faculty of anti-Semitism. But there is good reason to accuse those who voted against study abroad in Israel of permitting themselves to be swept up in an anti-Semitic current. That’s plenty to be ashamed of.
• Here are other commentaries I’m reading today . . .
– Ben-Dror Yemini: The anti-Semitic propaganda worked on Airbnb
– Nahum Barnea: Netanyahu’s challenges as defense minister
– Gil Troy: Wanted: Responsible adultism at the UN against Hamas’s ‘kitetifada.’
– Jonathan Tobin: BDS is a bust in the Middle East, but it’s alive in America
– Barbara Kay: Will anyone stand up to Airbnb’s anti-Semitic boycott?
Featured image: CC BY David McDermott;
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