Today’s Top Stories
1. Ex-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was acquitted on charges of murder and corruption. Take your pick of CNN, BBC, or New York Times coverage. The Daily Beast and Max Fisher comment on why the charges were dropped. But the simplest explanation is Calvinball in Cairo.
2. Canadian-Israeli citizen reportedly captured by ISIS. Gill Rosenberg, originally from White Rock, British Columbia, made news in Israel and Canada a few weeks ago when she joined up with Iraqi Kurds fighting against ISIS.
3. This comment by Mahmoud Abbas is my quote of the day because of its implications for peace talks, Gaza reconstruction, and Palestinian unity. Who is responsible for Gaza? And who, if anyone, has a mandate to negotiate with Israel?
“The Palestinian Authority does not exist in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is responsible for the Gaza Strip.”
Abbas also claimed Hamas and Israel were secretly negotiating. He was probably responding to Hamas officials who have said in recent days that the six month mandate of the Palestinian unity government expired. Haaretz reports that Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri “rejected claims that Hamas still holds the reins in the Gaza Strip.”
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s one government, and it has to function properly. If the government is unable to reconstruct the Strip that doesn’t mean it has any less responsibility to do so.”
Decoded, Hamas doesn’t want to be stuck with rebuilding Gaza. The weather piled more pressure on the Islamists. Torrential winter rains caused extensive flooding.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot was formally appointed the next IDF chief of staff. He’ll replace Benny Gantz, who steps down in February.
The incoming Chief of Staff reportedly supports striking Iranian nuclear facilities “only as a last resort,” and is long-associated with the army’s “Dahiya doctrine.
• How practical are suggestions to divide Jerusalem? Sky News discussed the question with the city’s mayor, Nir Barkat.
• AP and Reuters updates the latest Arab diplomatic moves pushing for Palestinian statehood.
• Ankara denies it’s allowing Hamas to operate from Turkish territory. Times of Israel coverage.
• According to Reuters, not only are Mahmoud Abbas’s hands clean on inciting Palestinians, Benyamin Netanyahu’s criticisms to the contrary are only politics.
Let’s see: Abbas sent a letter to the family of Mu’taz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi saying he’d go to heaven for shooting Yehuda Glick. In a UN speech, Abbas accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the West Bank. Abbas called Jews visiting the Temple Mount “a herd of cattle.” Abbas told Fatah activists, “We must prevent them from entering the Noble Sanctuary by all means. This is our Al-Aqsa.” But that’s all just politics too, right?
• Times of Israel reporter Avi Issacharoff posted a dispatch from the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus. He finds anger against the Palestinian Authority “seething.”
• Stabbing prevented at Tomb of the Patriarchs
• Ahead of French parliament’s symbolic vote on recognizing Palestine, French President Francois Hollande said he was trying to organize an international conference to unstick Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
• Denmark‘s parliament will discuss recognizing Palestine in December ahead of a vote in early January.
• In the face of mounting protests and politics, Benyamin Netanyahu postponed a Knesset reading of the Jewish nationhood bill that the cabinet approved last week. More on the developments at i24 News.
• CNN‘s Nic Robertson checks out Israel’s cyber security industry. According to the government, the cyber security sector made $2.5 billion for Israel.
Mideast Matters
• Syrian rebels backed by the US captured a string of towns and villages south of Damascus. According to AP, its their biggest gain yet. Unfortunately for the rebels, Bashar Assad’s benefiting from the US in a different way:
The advances appear to be a rare visible success story from efforts by the U.S. and its allies to train and arm moderate rebel fighters . . .
But few are under the illusion that the offensive in the south can loosen Assad’s grip on power in the near future. The Syrian leader has benefited from the U.S.-led coalition’s war against the Islamic State group, which has had the side effect of freeing up Assad’s forces to focus on more moderate rebels elsewhere in the country. Government forces have seized several key areas around the capital.
• A Palestinian Authority security officer was shot dead by Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Unfortunately, Maan News doesn’t address the obvious question: Why was the PA security officer in the Sinai?
He had driven his car into an area when Egyptian soldiers had set up an ambush targeting militant groups active in the area, and he failed to stop after warning shots were fired in the air, Palestinian police told Ma’an.
• YNet: Russia to supply Syria with advanced S-300 air defense system.
Commentary/Analysis
• November 30 was designated by the Knesset as day to commemorate “the Jewish Nakba,” the estimated 870,000 Jewish refugees forced to flee Arab lands. Commentaries by Ben-Dror Yemini, Irwin Cotler and the Jewish Chronicle are worth your time.
• For more commentary/analysis, see William Kristol (With Israel against terror), Jonathan D. Halevi (Hamas embraces path of ISIS), and Danny Rubinstein (Israeli-Palestinians conflict takes heavy economic toll). See also a staff-eds weighing in on the Jewish state bill in at The Guardian and The Economist.
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Arend; Eisenkot CC BY Wikimedia Commons/IDF
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