Today’s Top Stories
1. More legislative hurdles remain before anything becomes law, but Knesset committees advanced two controversial bills.
One would retroactively legalize settlement outposts built on private Palestinian land. A ministerial committee unanimously gave the legislation a thumbs up despite objections from the Prime Minister and Attorney General, who argue that the bill is legally indefensible and politically unwise. The bill is an attempt to bypass a 2014 Supreme Court decision ordering the government to dismantle Amona, an unauthorized settlement outpost, by December 25. This afternoon, the High Court rejected a state petition to delay the evacuation.
The second, known as the “muezzin bill” would ban mosques from using sound systems to amplify calls to prayer, with the legislation’s supporters calling the excessive noise a public nuisance.
The PA threatened to go to the UN if either bill becomes law.
2. Egypt’s easing its blockade of Gaza, reports the Times of Israel:
In the past month, Egypt has allowed the Rafah border crossing to remain open longer than usual, and permitted a larger number of Gaza’s residents to cross the border. Now it is considering a series of economic initiatives to improve the economic situation in both Hamas-run Gaza and in the adjacent Sinai peninsula. Over the past two weeks, a delegation of economists from Gaza traveled to Egypt to discuss these projects.
Most dramatically, Cairo is reportedly considering establishing a free trade zone in the city of Rafah, which straddles the Sinai-Gaza border, that would allow Gazan traders to purchase goods directly from the Egyptian side of the city.
3. The leader of the Arab Joint List party, MK Ayman Odeh, was interviewed by the Hezbollah-affiliated news channel, Al Mayadeen. Odeh shared his thoughts on the Mideast conflict, Donald Trump, as well as comparisons between Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. It’s illegal for Israelis to be in contact with foreign terror organizations like Hezbollah.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• According to the Times of Israel, Hamas recently appointed Imad al Alami, a “shadowy” figure with close ties to Iran and Syria, to run the Gaza Strip. Gaza’s outgoing strongman, Ismail Haniyeh, is preparing to replace the retiring Khaled Mashaal as the terror organization’s supreme leader.
[Alami] lived for some time in Tehran, then moved to Damascus in 2008. He returned to Gaza after being the last Hamas leader to leave the Syrian capital;
Meanwhile, DNA India elaborates on how the visit will strengthen academic ties while columnist Moinuddin Ahmad weighs in on “why India can’t hide its love for Israel anymore.”
• Syrian refugees regret move to Gaza. No kidding. What were they thinking?
About two dozen Syrian families also chose to migrate to Gaza after initially fleeing to Egypt. As the situation in Egypt deteriorated, they entered neighboring Gaza through smuggling tunnels. Some managed to leave before the Egyptian army shut most of the tunnels in 2013. But half still remain . . .
While UNRWA serves Palestinian refugees, the main international body assisting displaced Syrians is the U.N. refugee agency, which has no offices in Gaza. The Palestinian territories also have no official Syrian diplomatic mission, so the families can’t renew passports or register their newborns. And because they entered Gaza illegally through the tunnels, they have no way of exiting. With no legal status, work or aid, the Syrians can do little but wait for a miracle to leave.
• The World Health Organization ranked the IDF’s emergency medical team as ‘number one in the world.’
In 2013, the United Nation’s WHO created a set of criteria to classify foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters, on a scale from one to three. Israel is now the only country to receive the top mark.
• Iran exporting missile technology to Israel’s enemies.
Commentary/Analysis
• A Wall St. Journal staff-ed (click via Google News) calls on Congress and President-elect Trump to approve the Taylor Force Act. The act would condition US aid to the Palestinians on the PA ending its stipends to terrorists and their families.
The truth is these payments are blood-soaked gifts from a Palestinian leadership still devoted more to destroying Israel than to building a Palestinian state. This has always been the chief impediment to peace. Mr. Obama is unlikely to act in his final days, but the Trump Administration and new Congress could send a powerful message by passing the Taylor Force Act.
The act is named after Taylor Force, A 28-year-old US army veteran and Vanderbilt U. graduate student killed in a Palestinian stabbing rampage in Jaffa this past March.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Barak Ravid: Bill legalizing settlements will push Obama to the Security Council
– Tovah Lazaroff: Settlements bill puts Israel on collision course with Obama, UNSC
– Zalman Shoval: A diplomatic opportunity
– Jonathan Tobin: What Israel dsoesn’t need from Trump
– Benjamin Weinthal: What to do about Europe’s listless pursuit of Hezbollah terrorists?
– Douglas Murray: The party of left-wing anti-Semitism
Image: CC BY Walter Watzpatzkowski; minaret CC BY-NC-ND Fr. Gaurav Shroff; Red Fort CC BY-ND paolo mutti; field hospital CC BY-NC Israel Defense Forces;
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