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Today’s Top Stories
1. AFP labels the Tomb of the Patriarchs a “mosque.” I explained why a headline like this plays to a Palestinian propaganda campaign denying Jewish ties to holy sites like Hebron’s.
2. France’s release of terrorist Georges Abdallah was delayed, prompting protests in front of the French embassy in Beirut. The Daily Star writes:
Last week, a French court ruled Abdallah be released on condition that he be deported back to Lebanon, but the French Interior Ministry had not signed the order to expel him by Monday.
The prisoner’s brother, Joseph Abdallah, said the only explanation for the delay was that the French judiciary had “succumbed to U.S. pressure.”
Abdallah was convicted for the 1982 murders Israeli and American officials Yaakov Bar-Simantov and Lt. Col. Charles Ray in Paris.
3. McClatchy News reports that Hezbollah’s aiding Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon. I’ll wager they’re setting up the refugees as human shields, with weapons caches hidden in and around the homes Hezbollah’s welfare “wing” kindly provides:
“We have provided more than 2,000 houses and apartments in Nabatiyeh and the surrounding villages,” Wahda said. “Some homes have two or three families in them.”
The group is providing similar assistance to refugees in other parts of the country, even as its fighters are reportedly battling on the side of the Syrian government.
4. To its credit, the NY Times picked up on Mohammed Morsi’s anti-Semitic video. As HonestReporting asks: will other news services recognize the story and follow suit?
5. Facebook deactivated (update: and has now reactivated) the account of one of the bravest Palestinian journalists, Khaled Abu Toameh. His crime? Posting articles on PA corruption. How could Facebook play ball with the smear campaign?
Israel and the Palestinians
• Obama: “Israel Doesn’t Know What Its Best Interests Are”
With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation . . .
For Israel, the short-term consequences of Obama’s frustration are limited. The U.S. won’t cut off its aid to Israel, and Obama’s effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions will continue whether or not he’s fed up with Netanyahu.
But it is in terms of American diplomatic protection — among the Europeans and especially at the UN — that Israel may one day soon notice a significant shift.
• The NY Post got the scoop on some bad news from the legal front:
A US judge has ruled that the Palestinian Authority has the right to cover up a memo linking it to a suicide bombing that killed two teen American citizens in Israel, The Post has learned.
The document — accidentally handed over to lawyers suing the authority for $300 million on behalf of the teens’ parents — reveals a “close relationship” between the bomber and a captain in the Palestinian Authority security forces who planned the terror attack, court papers say. . .
But court papers say it links Sadeq Hafez, an operative for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, to Raed Nazal, “who was both a salaried officer in the PA’s security services and a leader of the PFLP cell in Qalqilya,” a Palestinan city in the West Bank.
• YNet: The IDF discovered a Gaza tunnel leading into Israel while investigating a ground collapse near the border fence.
• Israel’s fixing up national heritage sites including ones on the politically incorrect side of the Green Line. So, for example, handicap accessibility to Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs is an international incident because Israel’s the one undertaking it. AP coverage.
• Another non-governmental organization makes another call for a boycott of settlement produce in the EU. Such NGO talk is cheap, but given the veneer of an Al Haq report, it’s irresistible to The Guardian. ‘Nuff said.
