Today’s Top Stories
2. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the foreign ministers of 28 EU countries in Brussels. In a separate meeting in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Netanyahu to make gestures to the Palestinians, such as a settlement freeze, to get peace talks back on track.
Take your pick of Haaretz, Times of Israel, Ynet or Jerusalem Post coverage.
Not an EU expert, but suspect "be more like Trump" is not a message that will play well with most European leaders. https://t.co/Qd8lEi3AYJ
— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) December 11, 2017
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3. While we were all distracted by Jerusalem, Gaza’s already-delayed transfer of power from Hamas to the PA has hit “obstacles,” tsk.
4. NBC News Host Tweets Support for the End of Israel: How can Ayman Mohyeldin be trusted at all to report fairly after demonstrating his anti-Israel bias on Twitter?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Whether or not you agree with West Bank settlement activity, the derogatory word colonizing states that Jews are not native to the region. This Irish Times headline and report by Lara Marlowe directly attacks indigenous Jewish status.
• Foreign Policy: The Trump administration blindsided Palestinian leaders by failing to mention the impending Jerusalem recognition ahead of the president’s announcement.
• The Jerusalem Post takes a closer look at what’s known about the IDF’s tunnel-busting technology.
• Either Jerusalem Post copy editors were asleep at the wheel, or another country is laying a claim on Jerusalem.
Around the World
• Meet Mateusz Morawiecki, the Christian with Jewish roots is slated to become Poland’s new prime minister.
• French PM: Anti-Semitism in France has deep roots and ‘new masks.’
• Anti-Semitism has no place in Germany, minister says after an Israeli flag was burned in Berlin. I’m glad Reuters noted this vestige of common sense in Europe. It’s very much in-line with the working definition of anti-Semitism drawn up International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which Germany adopted in September.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Bild that while criticism of Trump’s decision was understandable, people had no right or reason to burn the Israeli flag, stir up hatred against Jews or question Israel’s right to exist.
On a related note, CTV News Vancouver reports that “Pro-Israel Jewish activists are crying foul after a likeness of an Israeli flag was lit on fire in Vancouver Saturday at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, but rally organizers say it was an expression of legitimate anger toward Israel.”
• More anti-Semitic, white supremacist flyers found on Princeton campus.
• Anti-Israel activists at Columbia U. fail to condemn Hamas for executing gay Palestinian.
• Rutgers U. isolates but does not fire professor for anti-Semitic social media posts. If he’s not working with students or faculty, what exactly is Professor Michael Chikindas being paid to do?
In a letter sent to faculty Friday morning, University President Robert Barchi and Chancellor Debasish Dutta announced that professor Michael Chikindas, who is a tenured, will be removed from teaching required courses so that students will not have to study with him.
Chikindas will also be ousted as director of the Center for Digestive Health at the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health, to allow employees to avoid working for him, Barchi and Dutta wrote, and he will be required to go through a cultural sensitivity program.
Commentary
• The tsunami of Jerusalem commentary is receding . . .
– Anshel Pfeffer: Three reasons we’re not seeing a 3rd intifada
– Ron Ben-Yishai: Nothing to be happy about, nothing to get killed over
– Fiamma Nirenstein: Europe, be a fair friend
– David Sharma: Trump’s Jerusalem move could help revive peace prospects
– Conrad Black: The Palestinians should take what they can get while they can
– Moshe Arens: Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a well-known fact
– Jennifer Oriel: Trump’s support for a two-state solution is being ignored
– Ralph Peters: Why the ‘Arab street’ didn’t just explode
– Emma Green: Trump did not bring Jerusalem crashing down
– Fareed Zakaria: Trump’s Jerusalem decision isn’t diplomacy. It’s pandering.
– Christian Science Monitor (staff-ed): If not the US, then who as Mideast mediator?
– The Australian (staff-ed): Middle East landscape evolves
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Amos Harel: Israel’s tunnel-busting breakthrough is robbing Hamas of its strategic weapon
– Douglas Murray: Are racist chants now acceptable on the British left?
– Annika Hernroth-Rothstein: In Sweden, protesters shout anti-Semitism
– Giulio Meotti: Islamist regimes take over UNESCO
Featured image: CC0 Pixabay/USA-Reiseblogger Putin via Kremlin; Jerusalem CC BY-SA Dan;
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