Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli officials will boycott visiting Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom over her government’s Mideast policies and her own history of comments. She has linked Islamist terror in Paris to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and demanded a probe into what she called Israel’s “extrajudicial executions.” In 2014, one of the first acts of the Swedish government was to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Wallstrom, who arrives on Thursday, sought meetings with various Israeli officials before visiting Palestinian leaders. Explaining the cold shoulder, a Foreign Ministry official told Haaretz:
“We reached the conclusion that there’s nobody to talk to and nothing to talk about,” he said.
2. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed today for Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with the goal of advancing diplomatic, security and economic ties with the Muslim countries. More at the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel.
Israel purchases more than half of its oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In addition, Azerbaijan is strategically very important because it borders Iran, and Kazakhstan’s diplomatic importance will increase beginning in January, when it assumes a rotating seat on the UN Security Council for the next two years.
In addition, both countries are members of Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev disclosed that Baku has signed $5 billion in arms purchasing contracts with Israel over the last several years.
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3. Hamas TV funded an Arab-Israeli MK’s Jordan trip, according to a report by the Knesset Ethics Committee. More at the Jerusalem Post:
The document revealed that [Haneen] Zoabi’s trip to Jordan between June 16 to 17 of 2016 was funded by the Palestinian terrorist group’s Al-Quds TV.
4. News services covered a car ramming attack at Ohio State University as terror, with clear attackers and victims. But 42 similar attacks in Israel were not as the media sympathized with the attackers instead. Sign our petition demanding that the wire services — Associated Press, Reuters and AFP — be consistent in their coverage of terror attacks. Click to watch our video add your name.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Police stopped a Palestinian woman’s attempted car-ramming and stabbing attack at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem this afternoon. YNet coverage.
• Due credit to France’s new Ambassador to Israel, Helene le Gal for being candid. She bluntly admitted that the upcoming Paris peace conference won’t offer any new ideas for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
“What we propose is nothing new but [we are] trying to keep the subject on the agenda and not letting it down because there are other crises in the world,” Ambassador Helene Le Gal said.
• The New York Times announced that Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker will be returning to the US to cover the White House beat.
I don’t see this as a knock on Baker’s short stint in Israel. Although he only arrived in Jerusalem in August, I think it reflects the paper’s decision to deepen its coverage of the Trump White House, which Baker has covered for years. (Erik Wemple elaborates on that.) No word yet on who might take over the Jerusalem bureau.
• Israel received the first two F-35 stealth fighter jets last night, becoming the first country to have the next-generation aircraft. Israel ordered 50 at a cost of more than $100 million apiece. I liked CNN‘s piece before the arrival.
Around the World
• In Germany, the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (Bank for Social Economy) formally shut down the account of “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East.” The Jerusalem Post explains the significance:
The Bank for Social Economy is the first global financial institution to explicitly state it closed an account because of BDS and connect BDS’s activities to modern antisemitism and a breach of ethics.
“The positions of the BDS campaign, in content and style, go way beyond the framework of ordinary democratic discourse,” the bank said.
• Replacing Ban Ki-moon, former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres was sworn in as UN Secretary General.
• As BDS resolutions stall on campus, pro-Palestinian students shift tactics.
It’s official: President-elect Donald Trump named Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. As ExxonMobil’s CEO, he has deep ties with the Arab world. Shmuel Rosner and the Times of Israel take a stab at what Tillerson means for Israel.
• Theresa May urges closer UK ties with Israel post-Brexit.
• Britain’s Union Of Jewish Students voted not to suspend ties with the National Union of Students. But the Jewish students said they’re not prepared to work with NUS president Malia Bouattia until she apologizes for using anti-Semitic language and not taking Jewish concerns seriously, among other things.
Commentary/Analysis
• How can universities legally protect Jewish students from BDS hate without infringing on free speech? Kenneth Stern weighs in.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Aviva Klompas: It’s time to move the US embassy to Jerusalem
– Ben-Dror Yemini: Israel losing public opinion support in US
– Amb. Zalman Shoval: The demon of anti-Semitism
– Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: Trump’s big decision on Iran
– Abdulrahman al-Rashed: Iran’s dilemma after Aleppo
Featured image: CC BY-SA The Next Web Photos with additions by HonestReporting; Wallstrom CC BY-NC-ND UN Geneva; Guterres via UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe;
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