Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories:
1. A Reuters photographer covering a Ramallah demonstration was horribly roughed up by PA police. But Where’s Reuters On Its Own Photographer’s Brutal Beating?
2. Sanctions are taking a bite on Iran. After noting soaring food prices and rising unemployment, the Daily Telegraph adds:
Even the regime’s most cosseted insiders are not immune. Staff in the elite Revolutionary Guards have experienced salary delays, with officials blaming budgetary disagreements between parliament and Mr Ahmadinejad. And in a potent irony for the ruling theocracy, the price of textile for clerics’ turbans has risen 15% in three months.
3. Yitzhak Shamir outlived the author of his obituary in The Independent. As I blogged earlier, it sometimes happens in The Ghoul Pool. Meanwhile, Time thinks Shamir’s death is a Palestinian story. Note the word Palestine in red above the headline. It’s either the result of a brainless Time algorithm, or UNESCO’s taking over the magazine. (UPDATE: Time fixed the problem.)
Israel and the Palestinians
• If the International Olympic Committee’s refusal for a moment of silence in memory of the Munich massacre drives up your blood pressure, sit down before reading the Palestinian Olympic Committee’s reaction, as quoted in the Daily Telegraph:
Well, there are also five Palestinians who died in Munich.
Hardly surprising actually. The head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Jibril Rajoub, wants Israel expelled from the Olympics.
• Yarden Frankl’s latest video dissects How to Fake an Anti-Israel News Photo.
• Fascinating Haaretz scoop: Israel sought a $1 billion loan for the PA from the International Monetary Fund to stave off the PA’s financial collapse:
The PA, which is not a state, cannot ask the IMF for help on its own. The plan therefore, was for Israel to take the loan on the Palestinians’ behalf, have the PA repay the loan to Israel, and Israel would repay the IMF.
The IMF rejected the Israeli request, however, saying it did not want to set a precedent of a state taking a loan on behalf of a non-state entity . . . .
Despite the refusal, Fischer and Fayyad are trying to find an alternate solution.
• I hope suffering animal prophets weren’t put through the wringer predicting this Maan News headline. Anyone could’ve seen this coming:
• Israel Fears Hezbollah Will Blockade Sea in Future War
Navy assessments are that Hezbollah will try to attack cargo ships within a 30-kilometer radius of Israel in an effort to get commercial vessels to refuse to sail there during a war.
• The Border Police are investigating an officer filmed kicking a Palestinian child. The Jerusalem Post writes:
Some in the Border Police suspect that cameramen get into position and start filming after children throw rocks at police.
Irrespective of the rock throwing, however, the sources believe there is no justification for the act captured on film.
