Today’s Top Stories
1. Caught on video: masked Palestinians ride to the site of a Ramallah riot in an ambulance. Seriously. This kind of tactic confronts the IDF with the impossible choice between attacking ambulances vs allowing violence to continue unchecked. The article includes the this video from the IDF. As far as we could find, the non-Israeli press said…nothing.
2. Rockets from Gaza are now reaching even farther into Israel than last week: alarms sounded in the city of Ashkelon last night in response to a barrage. The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted one such rocket over a residential area, and the IDF responded with attacks against Hamas positions in Gaza.
3. The Shin Bet foiled a Hamas plot to kidnap Israelis in the West Bank during the Hannukah holiday. Hamas was planning to operate from one of the major junctions in the Samaria region; three Hamas cell members were arrested.
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4. Is Jerusalem engulfed in violence? Should American Jews have a voice in Israeli policy? Why did the reform movement object to Trump’s Jerusalem embassy decision?
HR’s Daniel Pomerantz debates those issues and more on i24 News’ “The Spin Room” with guests Rabbi Steve Wernick, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Newsweek columnist Marc Schulman, and host Ami Kaufman.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Iranian leaders vow to back Hamas in its fight against Israel. While Hamas certainly needs money and support, this move is not making the Palestinians any friends in the Arab world, which largely considers the “Persian Entity” to be a significant threat and a “plunderer” (which is an enormous insult in Arab culture).
• Israel previously denied responsibility for a blast that killed two two Palestinian Islamic Jihad members in Gaza, though the press widely reported the story anyway. As of yesterday afternoon, the Islamic Jihad terror organization has admitted the event was an accident that occurred when the men mishandled explosives.
• Influential rabbi and leader Aharon Leib Shteinman has died at the age of 104. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him a “giant of Jewish learning” and President Reuven Rivlin praised him as a leader who “carried on his shoulders the existential weight of the Jewish people.”
Mideast Matters
• In the wake of Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vows that he will return focus to Israel, after years of engagement in the Syrian civil war. Nasrallah is also calling for Arab leaders to stop seeking new ties with Israel. The fact that the Hezbollah leader even has to ask for this, can be seen as a sign that the Arab world may be changing.
• Despite widespread claims that Trump’s embassy announcement has cost the US its role in a Middle East peace process, the EU has assured Prime Minister Netanyahu that it will not be initiating a peace proposal of its own, but will wait to see where the US proposals go. Netanyahu returned from Europe on Monday, where he was meeting with various EU leaders.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin is touring the Arab world. Putin saw substantial success in supporting Bashar Assad’s power in Syria, and there is a measure of discontent among Arab countries in the wake of Trump’s embassy announcement. Could this mean an expanded role for Russia in the Middle East?
Commentary/Analysis
• In the Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead concludes that Arab power over global affairs is vastly declining as the oil and energy markets shift. He contends that this is part of the reason Trump’s embassy move announcement was politically possible, as well as being the reason behind numerous other global political shifts. Mead predicts further decline and instability for Arab countries, which have largely never built sustainable economies outside of oil.
• If Jerusalem weren’t Israeli, would Muslims want it? Jeff Jacoby argues in The Boston Globe that the answer is: no. We frequently hear about Muslim religious and historical ties to “Al Quds” (as Jerusalem is known in Arabic). Yet Jacoby points out that during the years when the Old City (including its Muslim holy sites) was under Jordanian control, foreign Arab leaders did not visit, and the PLO’s 1964 charter did not even mention it.
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Trump’s Declaration on Jerusalem Violates No International Norms – Oded Eran and Robbie Sabel
– Why the “Arab Street” Didn’t Explode – Ralph Peters
–The Sunni Arab States Are Tired of the Palestinians’ Refusal to Negotiate with Israel – Tom Gross (Mideast Dispatch Archive)
Featured image: CC BY-SA Gage Skidmore;
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