Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel busted a Hamas terror network of 30 terrorists who were targeting Jerusalem’s soccer stadium and light rail, and planned a string of car bombings and kidnappings. YNet adds:
The terrorists were receiving orders from Hamas’ Turkey delegation. During the investigation, more than 30 suspects were arrested; explosive devices, M-16 rifles, and ammunition were confiscated. The cell included a number of West Bank Palestinians, two Jordanians, and a Kuwaiti.
2. Switzerland’s convening a summit of Geneva Convention signatories (around 200 countries) to discuss human rights in the Palestinian areas. According to Haaretz, the Swiss came under heavy Arab pressure; the US, Canada and Australia are trying thwart the meeting.
The conference cannot make binding decisions, but could increase international criticism of Israel’s policy in the territories, especially regarding the settlements . . .
Israel is a party to the convention, but the Knesset has never legislated the treaty into Israeli law. Israel claims the treaty is not applicable to the West Bank or East Jerusalem, for it considers these areas to be “disputed,” and not as under occupation. Thus, Israel does not regard the settlements as violations to the treaty.
3. The New Republic made a lot of buzz reporting the existence of a secret Israeli-Palestinian back channel that made strides on several key issues. But despite the progress and creative solutions, one problem sank it all. Yitzchak Molho’s unidentified counterpart apparently wasn’t authorized to make the concessions.
Abbas’s supposed representative was in fact holding these talks without a real mandate from the Palestinian President; the concessions he discussed with Molho didn’t represent the President’s views. Parts of this story remain unsolved—most importantly, why this lack of a mandate was missed or ignored in real time. But what can be told is enough to raise some hard questions about Kerry’s effort, and offer important lessons for future attempts at reaching an agreement.
4. Cartoon Implies Israel is a Police State: Why was the Mossad lumped together with police state spy agencies like the KGB and Stasi?
5. Daily Beast Points Fingers at Israel: For the Daily Beast, there’s no such thing as unprovoked Palestinian violence.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The European Parliament postponed a vote on recognizing Palestine. Divided MEPs will gather again in December to try again. More at the Jerusalem Post:
Israeli diplomatic officials said the move was pushed off from Thursday for three reasons: Emerging difficulties between the various parties regarding the language of the resolution; opposition by some members of the parties – especially from Germany – to the resolution; and intensive work by Israeli diplomats in Brussels to postpone the vote, hoping to gain more time to change minds.
• The latest violence is hitting the Israeli economy, reports the Financial Times (via Google News).
Israel’s economy, which had been growing at an annual rate of 3 per cent recently, shrank by 0.4 per cent in the third quarter, due to the impact of the war in Gaza and the drop in tourism, which makes up 2 per cent of economic output.
The contraction is the first in five years for Israel’s technology and service-oriented economy and has sent a signal that its conflict with the Palestinians is taking a growing economic toll.
• It may not survive the Knesset, but an action plan for dealing with Palestinian terror and incitement proposed by the Likud party is getting a lot of Western media attention. I’ll let you judge whether adjectives like “harsh” are apropos. The Washington Post and Daily Telegraph had clearest coverage.
• Jerusalem Post: The city council of Leicester — Britain’s 10 largest city — voted to ban all Israeli goods. Councilor Tom Chapman voted and tweeted his opposition.
Mideast Matters
• The Financial Times (via Google News) reports that Egypt and Cyprus are freezing Turkey out of possible gas deal. Just a few days ago, it was announced that Israel, Cyprus, and Greece would hold a trilateral meeting in Athens, with energy prominently on the agenda. Is this the emergence of an anti-Turkey coalition in the Eastern Med?
• As nuclear talks fail, Israel upgrades ties with Azerbaijan.
• An Egyptian court sentenced 78 minors — some as young as 13 — to prison terms for being at a Muslim Brotherhood rally.
• Reuters: Egypt closes Sinai schools as area inches towards all-out war. Fighting between jihadi groups and the army made travelling to school dangerous anyway . . .
• Lebanon and France finalized a $3 billion arms deal.
Commentary/Analysis
• For more commentary/analysis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Ben-Dror Yemini (An evil spirit taking over Middle Eastern studies), Howard Feldman (It’s time for BDS to get a grip), and Ihsan Yilmaz (Erdogan abuses the Palestinians).
• Weighing in on the Iranian nuclear talks are Amos Yadlin (Kicking the can down the road), Dr. Ephraim Kam (Iran’s breakthrough point), Dennis Ross (Iran showed no flexibility in nuke talks), and Jeffrey Golberg (The many obstacles to a strong nuclear deal).
Image: CC BY-SA flickr/Roy Blumenthal
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