Today’s Top Stories
1. German prosecutors are investigating Facebook and its top executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, over racist and Holocaust-denying posts, as well as others deemed inciting violence on the social media platform. According to the complaint, Facebook failed to remove more than 400 such posts despite repeated requests from readers. UPI adds:
Justice Minister Heiko Maas said he would take legal measures if the company doesn’t comply by March by its demand to deal with hate speech.
Holocaust denial is considered criminal hate speech in Germany. More on the story at Reuters.
2. British university ordered to compensate Jewish student for rejecting his complaints against campus group’s anti-Semitic activity.
The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) ruled that Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire must pay the student — who is disabled — a sum of £3,000 ($3,750) for taking nine months to respond to a formal complaint he lodged against the antisemitic and anti-Zionist activity of certain groups at the school — and then for rejecting it.
The OIA strongly condemned Sheffield and, in what is being called a precedent-setting move, called on the school to formally adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism — which includes certain forms of anti-Zionism — as it is “of particular relevance.”
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3. The European Union seeks repayment for demolished West Bank structures it illegally funded. Haaretz got the scoop.
Israel has no intention of making any reimbursement. Earlier this year, the Daily Mail reported that EU funding for illegal Palestinian structures under Israeli jurisdiction violates international law — specifically the Oslo accords, of which the EU is a signatory. The Times of Israel fills in the numbers.
In July, EU Ambassador to Israeli Lars Faaborg-Andersen said that since 2009 approximately 170 EU-funded structures of a value of €300,000 ($330,000, NIS 1.25 million) have been demolished or confiscated and approximately 600 structures, worth over €2.3 million ($2.5 million, NIS 9.7 million), have been served with demolition, stop-work or eviction orders and are therefore under threat of demolition.
During the first six months of 2016, Israel razed 91 houses built with the “support of the European Union,” up from 70 in all of 2015, he said. The EU has invested €21 million ($23.2 million, NIS 88 million) in the last two years for development and humanitarian aid for Palestinians, he added.
Faaborg-Andersen said the EU would continue to provide aid to the Palestinians in Area C, despite the tension it generates with Jerusalem.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Despite Israeli objections, France intends to move forward with an international conference on Mideast peace by the end of the year, as part of Paris’ peace initiative.
Pierre Vimont, who is France’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and a former senior official of the EU’s foreign affairs service, told a conference in Tel Aviv that the current status quo was distancing the two-state solution and necessitating an intervention: “We want to revive the two-state solution in this window of opportunity and return it to the international agenda.”
Jerusalem responded by asking France to cancel the confab and called for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.
• Haaretz: The Palestinians continue to hope that President Barack Obama will make a game-changing move in the Mideast peace process before leaving the White House.
• An Israeli court indicted a Gaza fisherman for smuggling to Hamas. Mahmoud ibn Said al-Saidi was charged with delivering from Egypt diving suits, binoculars, oxygen balloons, and cigarettes. He also tried and failed to smuggle unspecified weapons.
• Despite intimidation and prevailing Arab groupthink, a delegation of seven prominent Moroccan journalists are visiting Israel as guests of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Participants were happy to talk to YNet — so long as they were identified.
“I didn’t tell most of my friends that I am coming here so that they wouldn’t ostracize me. As a country, Morocco has no problem with me coming to Israel. As a delegation we flew as usual from Casablanca. No one prevented us from doing so.” However, she noted that “my friends recommended that I don’t share anything on social media. ‘You will regret it for the rest of your life. They will incite against you and you will possibly even get death threats,’” they warned her.
• A changing wind blows through Israel-Norway relations.
• In a rare visit to Gaza’s tiny Christian community, British Cardinal Vincent Nichols led services and gave encouragement. I’m glad the Associated Press drew attention to Gaza Christians living under Hamas, but I wish the wire service had dug a little deeper.
• The Palestinian experiment with democracy is not going well.
Fatah officials enraged by PA court's decision that authorizes President Abbas to strip legislators of their parliamentary immunity.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) November 6, 2016
• MKs advance bill to bar BDS activists from entering Israel.
• Worth reading: YNet profiles prominent Israeli-Arab news anchor Lucy Aharish.
• Washington Post: Israel’s ruling party used Facebook to track ‘antigovernment’ journalists hired recently to set up a new public broadcasting service.
Around the World
• Pennsylvania governor signed anti-BDS legislation into law.
• A Nuremburg city council meeting devolved into chaos after a group of artists were prohibited from setting up an anti-Israel exhibit at the Nuremberg Left Literature Fair.
The fair takes place each year in the city-owned Künstlerhaus cultural center and Mayor of Nuremberg Ulrich Maly (Social Democratic Party) had prohibited the building’s use for a well-known anti-Semitic program.
• Canadian Jewish organization decries appearance of neo-Nazi newspaper on York U. campus in Toronto.
Commentary/Analysis
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Col. Richard Kemp: Arab hatred of Jews predates Balfour Declaration
– Yossi Melman: Hamas operating from Turkey as usual despite Ankara’s promises
– Elliott Abrams: Understanding the human rights assaults on Israel
– Nir Boms, Asaf Romirowsky: Are Palestinians ready for #peace?
– Amb. Arthur Koll: Israel’s unique position in the horns of the European dilemma
Image: CC BY-NC Kent Landerholm; Zuckerberg CC BY-NC JD Lasica; Israel-EU via crossed-flag-pins.com; Vimont CC BY Security & Defence Agenda; Cologne CC BY Wikimedia Commons/Superbass;
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