Today’s Top Stories
1. Four bombings rocked the Mideast and Africa this weekend. Today, at least 25 people were killed in a bombing inside Cairo’s main Coptic cathedral. Also today in Somalia, a suicide truck bombing which killed 29 people at the Mogadishu Port. The Islamist al Shabaab claimed responsibility.
On Saturday, in Istanbul, a pair of suicide bombers killed 38 people (29 of whom were police officers) outside a stadium following a heavily attended soccer match. Another 136 were injured.
And on Friday, 57 were killed in a double suicide bombing in a Nigerian market. Reports said 120 of the 177 injured were children. No claims of responsibility for the attack in the northern Nigerian town of Madagali but officials blame Boko Haram.
Moment of explosion in Istanbul from an amateur camera! pic.twitter.com/tJ6KeYCPfD
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) December 10, 2016
2. Hamas is cracking down big time on Gaza’s Salafists. According to Asharq al-Awsat, at least 350 members of “extremist movements” have been arrested in recent weeks amid reported Hamas fears that Salafists were planning attacks on Hamas positions and over their ties to Sinai jihadists.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
3. According to the Miami Herald, the US wants to deport one of its Guantanamo Bay detainees to Israel. Why are officials in Jerusalem reportedly interested? And what’s the snag keeping Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu at Gitmo?
A leaked May 2007 prison profile describes Abdul Malik as having “admitted that he participated in the planning and execution” of two terrorist attacks that targeted Israelis on the same day, Nov. 28, 2002 in Mombasa. A car-bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel killed 13 people, mostly Kenyans, around the same time an unsuccessful surface-to-air missile attack targeted an Israeli Arkia airliner carrying 271 passengers near Mombasa airport . . .
According to three government officials who were aware of the trip, the State Department’s Special Envoy for the closure of Guantánamo, Ambassador Lee Wolosky, traveled to Israel in April and met with senior officials who “expressed interest” in the case. Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu was not among those he met.
But the deal has hit a snag, according to three sources, because the FBI has failed to furnish the Israelis with information from its interrogations.
4. UPDATE: New York Times Public Editor Responds to Breaking the Silence Complaint: Public editor Liz Spayd responds to HonestReporting readers about the lack of disclosure in a major Sunday magazine feature of a eastern Jerusalem refugee camp
Israel and the Palestinians
• Congress authorized $600 million for procurements for Israel’s three levels of missile defense — Iron Dome, David’s Sling (medium range) and Arrow-3 (long-range) — as well as joint US-Israel R&D. JTA coverage.
Missile defense funding is separate from the approximately $3 billion Israel receives annually from the United States, according to a 10-year agreement the U.S. and Israel signed in 2007. The agreement reached over the summer by the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government rolls missile defense funding into the next 10-year package, which will average $3.8 billion a year.
• 3 Israelis take wrong turn in West Bank, rescued by PA police.
• Hezbollah denies it promised Russia no attacks on Israel.
• A planned United Nations blacklist of companies operating in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is advancing.
• Tonight, 60 Minutes airs an interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a teaser released by the show, the Prime Minister touched on his relationships with President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump.
• The IDF confirmed that an allegedly “declassified” map of Hezbollah positions in civilian areas of Southern Lebanon was a fabrication.
https://twitter.com/JudgeDan48/status/806957771660804096
• Bloomberg News: As competing drafts of anti-settlement resolutions circulate the UN, President Obama is pressed to wade into Israel-Palestinian fight again.
Around the World
• The US House of Representatives puts off action on anti-Semitism bill.
• Jewish students at Britain’s University of Manchester are left ‘angry, fearful’ in wake of successful BDS campaign that ‘sprang out of nowhere.’
• Students at ten Italian high schools list Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ among favorite books.
Commentary/Analysis
• Veteran Saudi journalist says Israeli ties with Saudi Arabia could improve if Israeli Arabs were simply allowed to work in Saudi Arabia. In an interview with the Hudson Institute, Abdulrahman Al-Rashed said:
But if the question is specifically what can be done now — before the conflict is resolved — to increase connectivity, perhaps a new step would be for Saudi Arabia to formally lift its ban on work visas for Israel’s Arab citizens, and for Israel to welcome and foster Arab Israelis’ professional deployment to any Arab country.
From a Saudi perspective, the case for doing so can be made openly in terms of the virtue of empowering all Palestinians, on either side of the Green Line. In seeking out the most qualified Arabs in Israel to work anywhere in the Gulf, moreover, we will inevitably find those who have achieved success in the mainstream of Israel’s economy and society — the tech sector, manufacturing, medicine, and so on. When they travel to the GCC states, their human networks and professional partnerships will effectively travel with them. Thus, they can serve as a human bridge, as Israel moves toward a political solution, gradually enabling partnerships between the broader populations of both sides.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Jeffrey Salkin: Richard Spencer misunderstands Zionism — and white people
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: Do chemical weapons in Syria threaten Israel?
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Israel and the new sheriff in Syria
– Dr. Reuven Berko: Abbas is up to his old tricks
– Yaakov Katz: Why is the Middle East so disappointed with Obama?
– Jacob Diamond: The silence about campus anti-Semitism
– Toronto Sun (staff-ed): BDS movement only divides us
– Ariel Bolstein: Merkel and the fight against BDS
– Tom Rollins: Why Khan Eshieh Palestinian camp could be the next Yarmouk
Featured image: CC BY-SA Estitxu Carton with additions by HonestReporting; Abdul Malik Wikimedia Commons; David’s Sling via YouTube/AiirSource Military; Rashed via YouTube/Emirates Policy Center;
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