Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli anti-trust regulators ruled that the consortium of companies overseeing the Leviathan offshore gas field was a monopoly and ordered it be broken up. You can read the details at the Jerusalem Post, Globes, Haaretz, YNet, and Times of Israel. The latter best summed up the bottom line:
Leviathan — which boasts an estimated 16-18 trillion cubic feet of gas — was discovered in 2010 some 130 kilometers (81 miles) west of Haifa. It was expected to become operational in 2016, but the Antitrust Authority’s decision could push that back several years.
2. A bullet fired from an air gun crashed through a window of a Paris synagogue’s office. French police reportedly are searching for two suspects who were outside the synagogue about 10 minutes before the attack. More in The Times of Israel.
3. Israel’s refusing to grant a new passport to Marhan Khaldi, who went to fight for ISIS in Iraq. He may even lose his citizenship too. If you’re an Israeli-Arab thinking joining ISIS, read Haaretz and don’t get over your head in trouble:
The man, a Nazareth resident, left Israel in October and cut off contact with his family, leading his relatives to suspect that he had gone to join a terrorist organization fighting in either Iraq or Syria. But after great effort, they managed to locate him and convince him to leave Iraq and return to Israel via Turkey, one relative said.
When the man arrived in Istanbul, he had no passport or other identifying documents. This isn’t uncommon; other Israeli Arabs who have joined terrorist organizations like the Islamic State have shredded their documents lest they be captured by enemies and identified as Israeli. There have also been claims that the terror organizations confiscate the passports of their foreign-born fighters to prevent them from deserting.
4. The 2014 Dishonest Reporting Awards: Our annual review of the year’s worst cases of media bias.
5. The 2014 Dishonest Reporting Awards: Why the Gaza War Correspondents Won: We set aside the readers’ choice for the first time. Here’s why.
6. Palestinian Christmas Rehashed: The New Statesman rehashes a tired old anti-Israel Christmas story.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy was arrested and detained for a few hours for allegedly cursing and spitting IDF soldiers manning a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Levy denies the charges.
• A Jerusalem court indicted eight Arabs for using Facebook to incite terror.
• Bethlehem hoped for a banner year of tourism on the heels of Pope Francis’s visit. But the Gaza war scared the tourists away. The Media Line reported some signs of encouragement though:
While overall tourism is down, overnight stays are up nine percent this year from last year.
• The Bethlehem municipality wants to dig a traffic tunnel under Manger Square, AP reports. That’s where the Church of the Nativity’s located. I thought only Israel undermines holy sites.
• Sydney Morning Herald: Australia’s down to its last few days on the UN Security Council. What will Canberra do if Palestinian statehood comes up for a vote before the end of the year?
• In its 2014 report on reporters killed in 2014, the Committee to Protect Journalists included Sameh al-Aryan. He was a cameraman, but he worked for the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV station, which is the terror organization’s mouthpiece. Sorry, CPJ, but al-Aryan doesn’t belong in this tally. Without drawing a moral equivalence, he’s no more a journalist than, say, official White House photographer Pete Souza.
Commentary/Analysis
• If Israel and the Palestinians tried to reach Bethlehem today . . .
- They would get stuck at an Israeli checkpoint.
- They would be murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
• What threat does an Iranian-backed Yemen pose to Israel?
If the Houthis are able to solidify control over the southernmost country on the Arabian Peninsula, which lying on the Red Sea is Israel’s outlet from its southern port in Eilat, it could create a risk for Israel and other countries’ sea traffic.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Djibouti could also be affected if Yemen would become an Iranian hub. If any of these countries would cooperate with Israel to counter such a scenario still remains up in the air.
• Unmasking BDS: Radical Roots, Extremist Ends
• For more commentary/analysis, see Jeff Robbins (A ‘very good question’ in Mideast conflict), Leon Hadar (After Havana, is Tehran next?), and Christian Sahner (The Arab world’s vanishing Christians). and Jamal Khashoggi (A painful and frustrating Arab collapse).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Israel’s following US lead on detente with Cuba
• Peace on earth and goodwill to all men? Not in the Mideast.
The Islamic State (IS) is turning Christian churches in Syria and Iraq into torture chambers and selling stolen holy artifacts on the black market in the process, according to recent reports.
Featured image: CC BY flickr/Pedro Ribeiro Simoes; ID card CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons; Bethlehem CC BY-NC-ND flickr/Maggie & Rick
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