Today’s Top Stories
1. Satellite images show what appears to be a permanent Iranian base in Syria being built, according to a BBC report widely picked up by the Israeli and international media.
Meanwhile, the US and Russia reportedly reached an agreement to keep Iranian-backed militias in Syria away from the Israeli border. Just don’t ask about the details:
According to similar reports in Channel 10 and Israel Radio, the official did not say how far from the border the militias would be removed or under what time frame. In addition to Iran-backed groups, affiliates of both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, both of which count foreign fighters among their ranks, operate in Syria near the Israeli border.
Satellite images suggest that Iran is building a military base in al-Kisweh, 14km southwest of Damascus, Syria:https://t.co/KRBVcj587J #Syria #Iran @BBCNews pic.twitter.com/yOKfYukzEb
— Abdulrahman al-Masri (@AbdulrhmanMasri) November 10, 2017
2. A student group at Montreal’s McGill U. admitted using anti-Semitic propaganda to keep a Jewish student off the student government.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. Israel shot down an aerial drone near the Syrian border on Saturday.
Israeli security officials said the drone’s operators had deliberately attempted to fly the aircraft across the Israeli border, Channel 10 reported.
The IDF later concluded that the aircraft belonged to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. It did not enter Israeli territory.
4. BBC Erases Jews from Ancient Israel: Why is it so difficult for the BBC to acknowledge who the “native people” of Roman-controlled Judea were?
Why is it so difficult for @BBC to acknowledge who the native people of Roman Palestine were? Say it… JEWS. https://t.co/lUrmbZRkwj pic.twitter.com/7Pz7t80uhb
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 10, 2017
5. How the UK Media Recently Smeared Israel: Nuance went on holiday as British journalists unpacked the controversy surrounding Priti Patel’s meetings with Israeli officials.
6. Minds No Longer Exercised in Tel Aviv: HonestReporting had to remind the International Business Times that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• According to a New York Times report picked up in the Israeli media, the Trump administration is actually working on a plan “intended to go beyond previous frameworks offered by the American government in pursuit of what the president calls ‘the ultimate deal.'”
Although Mr. Trump has not committed to a Palestinian state, analysts said they anticipated that the plan will have to be built around the so-called two-state solution that has been the core of peacemaking efforts for years . . .
Mr. Trump’s team sees the convergence of factors that make the moment ripe, including an increased willingness by Arab states to finally solve the issue to refocus attention on Iran, which they consider the bigger threat. With that in mind, Egypt is brokering a reconciliation between Mahmoud Abbas, who presides in the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, a deal that would cement the Palestinian Authority as the representative of the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia has summoned Mr. Abbas to Riyadh to reinforce the importance of a deal.
• The Times of Israel reports good news and bad news for Israeli judoka Ori Sasson. The good news: Morocco allowed him to display his country’s name and insignia, unlike a few weeks earlier, when UAE sporting officials wouldn’t allow Sasson or his teammates to display Israel’s name or flag. The bad news: Sasson lost to Frenchman Cyrille Maret, ending his medal hopes in Marrakech.
Naturally, there’s a political aspect:
Turkey is among the vocal critics of what it calls the “occupation” of east Jerusalem and the “violations” of Al-Aqsa Mosque, a sacred Islamic site, by Israeli forces. Erdogan previously expressed Turkey’s support for the Palestinian fight against the Israeli occupation and called on Turks to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque often to protect the Muslim identity of the holy site. “As a Muslim community, we need to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque often, each day that Jerusalem has it under occupation is an insult to us,” he said in a speech at a forum on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque held recently in Turkey.
• Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz discussed a diplomatic offensive in the UN with the Associated Press.
Sources close to Hariri say Saudi Arabia has concluded that the prime minister – a long-time Saudi ally and son of late prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005 – had to go because he was unwilling to confront Hezbollah.
Campus Concerns
• BDS activists covertly ‘took over’ the American Studies Association before it endorsed an Israel boycott, according to a lawsuit picked up by The Algemeiner.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law — which is representing four plaintiffs suing the ASA over its 2013 adoption of the boycott — revealed that newly-uncovered emails showed how activists with the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) “took over” and used the ASA to advance their political agenda.
More background at Legal Insurrection.
• Judge dismisses complaint alleging anti-Semitism at San Francisco State U., telling the plaintiffs to “pare down complaint and deliver something simple and concise.”
• Two U. of Illinois students face felony charges for vandalizing a menorah on campus.
Around the World
• Germany charges Palestinian with murder of Hamburg Christians over Temple Mount tensions.
• Berlin mayor slams BDS rally on Kristallnacht Remembrance Day.
• Calling Israeli children ‘Zionist terrorists in training’ is not incitement to hate, Dutch prosecutors rule
• Channeling her inner Ken Livingstone, I presume?
• Brussels Jewish museum opens first exhibition since 2014 massacre.
• The letter discovered by the Daily Mail was written in 1986. Let’s see if Prince Charles repudiates it. The heir to the British throne only blamed the Mideast conflict on “the influx of foreign Jews” and hopes that a US president will eventually stand up to “the Jewish lobby.”
• Puerto Rico’s been without electricity for 50 days since Hurricane Maria wrecked the island’s power grid. So how’s Puerto Rico’s Jewish community doing?
Commentary/Analysis
• Memo to David Pratt: If you’re going to insinuate that Israel is deliberately and knowingly giving medical care to Syrian Islamist rebels, please at least furnish stronger proof than an unnamed Palestinian official in Ramallah. Perhaps your Herald-Scotland could arrange a visit to the IDF field hospital for a first-hand look, like Politico recently did.
• The Israeli-Saudi-Lebanese-Iranian dance is on my mind . . .
– Dr. Oded Eran: Will changes in Riyadh lead to new era in Israel-Saudi relations?
– Yoav Limor: Shaping the northern front
– Avi Issacharoff: Is war between Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah an impossible scenario?
– Yaron Friedman: Why is Saudi Arabia so determined to destroy Hezbollah?
– David Ignatius: Saudi Arabia commits the original sin of Mideast politics
– Mohamed Bazzi: Saudi Arabia comes for Hezbollah
– Dennis Ross: Iran’s ‘malign activities’ and the need to put the spotlight on its actions
If you think Israel is gunning for war in south Lebanon to help an impetuous Muhammad bin Salman, you don't know much about Israeli security policy.
— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) November 9, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Brig. Gen. (res.) Michael Herzog: The Palestinian reconciliation agreement – context, consequences and open questions
– Yoav Limor: The Gaza gamble
– Cathryn Prince: Looking for an American bipartisan issue? Try the fight against BDS
– Melanie Phillips: The strategic importance of the argument from law
– Daniel Sugarman: Priti Patel had to go, but this wild speculation about Israel’s grip on UK politics has to stop
– Azriel Bermant: Priti Patel’s private diplomacy with Israel isn’t unique. But her case is the oddest
– Vladimir Sloutsker: Kristallnacht, and our modern-day approach to anti-Semitism
– Matti Friedman: My forgotten war and their forgotten graves
• For a sense of what the critics are saying, see Mary Dejevsky.
Featured image: CC BY-NC Jens Schott Knudsen; White House CC0 Pixabay; sultan via Wikimedia Commons; Hariri via YouTube/euronews (en francais); Prince Charles CC BY-SA Dan Marsh;
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