Today’s Top Stories
1. Haaretz: Israel is moving to outlaw an informal group of Palestinian “guards” at the Temple Mount, and restrict visits by Knesset members and right-wing activists.
The guards are called “Mourabitoun” in Arabic, a term used to describe an advance guard meant to protect Islamic holy sites from heretics. Dozens of men and women are part of the guard, and are present near the mosques on the Temple Mount – which is worshipped by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – day and night. They are funded by various Islamist parties, including some extremist groups in Israel. In many cases, the guards, particularly the females, have been involved in clashes with the Israel Police or Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. Five female members of the guard have been issued orders prohibiting them from being on or near the Temple Mount, due to their involvement in previous incidents.
2. Israel appealed to NATO to take action against Turkey, which has allowed Hamas to set up an operational office in Istanbul. Israel HaYom reports:
Official communiqués sent from Jerusalem to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s office in Brussels, via several channels, said it was inconceivable that a member of the intergovernmental military alliance would maintain ties with a terrorist organization.
Hamas’ new Istanbul-based operation is said to be headed by Saleh al-Arouri, an infamous arch-terrorist believed to be responsible for dozens of attacks against Israelis.
According to top Jerusalem sources, Arouri was also heavily involved in Hamas’ attempt to overthrow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s government in the West Bank over the summer.
3. Egypt re-opened the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for two days. It’s a one-way opening: Palestinians can enter Gaza, but not leave. AFP filed a dispatch from the crossing. If you’re one of the 3,500 Palestinians stranded in the Sinai, Maan News published the hours the border crossing will be open.
4. Distorting the News of Jerusalem Terror: The Jerusalem synagogue massacre illustrates the systemic distortions through which news services view Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Shin Bet says a Jewish construction worker’s death was terror, not work accident. Netanel Roi Arami fell to his death while doing exterior work on a Petah Tikva high-rise in September.
• Fanning the flames on the Temple Mount, an Islamist preacher in the Al-Aqsa Mosque was caught on video ranting death to the Jews, annihilate the US, ISIS is great, etc. etc. etc. See Memri‘s transcript and the Times of Israel‘s background.
• South African court orders BDS to stop protesting Woolworths even as boycotters announce plans to target Pick n Pay shops and Dis-Chem pharmacies. Do the Palestinian supporters have the leverage? Stay tuned . . .
• Disappointing activists, Holland‘s “idealist” foreign minister says recognizing Palestine won’t promote peace.
• Can you spot the difference between the original and the corrected Times of London headlines?
• AP takes a stab at making sense of the Jewish state bill.
• I wonder how people in Ferguson feel about ISIS hijacking their situation for PR and incitement. Recruiting too?
• According to UN figures quoted by AP, ISIS raked in as much as $45 million in ransoms. Hostages have proven lucrative for years, so why should ISIS stop now?
Yotsna Lalji told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee that an estimated $120 million in ransom was paid to terrorist groups between 2004 and 2012.
Commentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Israeli Arab journalist Nazir Mgally denounces Muslims stoking sectarian strife with Israel’s Druze community. In recent days, a Druze monument was defaced with ISIS graffiti; also, 41 people were injured in a massive Druze-Arab brawl. Directly addressing an unnamed sheikh I assume is Raed Salah, Mgally writes:
What have you got against the Druze? Are you incapable of accepting the other, or is it simply religious fanaticism that causes you to drive your children into the bottomless pit of violence as aggressors or victims – it matters not. You are sending them to prison or to hospital and sometimes to the grave. It blinds you from seeing the good in every group of people, whatever its nature and affiliation. It implicates you in the horrible, bloody conflicts that devour us – sects, peoples and nations. Are we so short of conflicts that we need to add another one, against our brothers, the Druze?
• Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar is relieved the world powers extended nuclear talks with Iran rather than sign a bad deal. But he’s squeamish that the talks are still headed in that direction. He writes in the Wall St. Journal (click via Google News):
In our willingness to play Iran’s game, I believe that we are marching toward signing a very bad deal . . .
In trying too hard to get the nuclear issue off the table so that relations with Iran can be normalized and the country can be reintegrated into international circles, we are putting the cart before the horse. This is a dramatic change since Iran’s 1979 revolution, when the Islamic Republic was designated a state sponsor of terrorism and considered to be a revolutionary power intent on transforming the world order.
Obviously, everyone would love to have a “normal” Iran, respecting international norms and behaving cooperatively with other nations. But the reality is that Iran remains the Islamic Republic, with all the ambitions of a hegemonic regional power.
• Over at the Irish Times, Charlie Flanagan and Erkki Tuomioja (the foreign ministers of Ireland and Finland, respectively) tag teamed on an op-ed calling for greater European involvement in the Mideast peace process.
• This New York Times op-ed slams the Israel and the PA security forces: Seems that we subcontracted the dirty work of law and order to repressive Palestinian toadies.
Some Israeli politicians may be content to see an unreformed Palestinian Authority continue to be discredited as long as this obstructs any peace settlement that would end Israel’s occupation. But this is shortsighted and ultimately self-defeating. There can be no security for Israel if Palestinians do not have their basic rights.
• Orhan Kemal Cengiz, Beril Dedeoglu, and Mustafa Akyol weigh in on the Turkish synagogue uproar.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Marc Schulman‘s Tel Aviv diary (The “Jerusalem syndrome” curse is spreading), Norman Bailey (Egypt protects Israel’s flank), Zack Beauchamp (Why Israel was Chuck Hagel’s biggest fan), Clifford May (Slaughter in the synagogue), and Abdulrahman Al-Rashed (We are all journalists), and a New York Post staff-ed (Angela Merkel says “no” to the Palestinians.)
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Jon S; Istanbul CC BY-NC-ND flickr/MacPepper; atom CC BY-SA DeviantArt/deejaywill
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
