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Today’s Top Stories
1. Might Israel enter into a joint missile defense with Jordan and Egypt? Reuters has me intrigued.
2. Tunisia wouldn’t let some 20 Israeli tourists disembark from the Norwegian Jade, a cruise ship that docked in La Goulette. A government official told AFP explained it away as a “procedural problem” because the Israelis didn’t have visas. (Non-Israeli Jews were able to leave the ship.)
Maritime lawyer Jim Walker slammed Tunisia as well as Norwegian Cruise Line’s weak apology:
NCL’s statement is pathetic. NCL should not be down-playing the incident like this. The Tunisian government’s action should be immediately and unequivocally denounced in the strongest language possible.
This is not about returning nominal port taxes to inconvenienced guests. It is about much deeper and important issues. No citizens of any nation should be subjected to such discrimination. The fact that an Arab nation would exhibit such contempt and hostility against Israel is particularly despicable . . .
Tunisia’s actions sent a clear message to Israeli citizens. NCL’s response should be equally clear. The only reasonable action is for NCL and the cruise industry to boycott Tunis as a port.
3. The IDF foresees drone threats from Hezbollah and Hamas, reports Reuters:
Israel is separately developing Iron Beam, a laser system for vaporizing short-range mortar bombs and says it also will be able to destroy small drones.
Shohat said the guerrillas’ drones would range from radio-controlled model airplanes weighing a few kilos to large drones with payloads of hundreds of kilos.
Another air force officer said Shohat was referring to drones carrying explosives and designed to crash into targets.
4. Context-Free Headlines: A death at a border crossing whips up a firestorm in Jordan against Israel, but sensationalized headlines only inflame even more.
5. AFP Retracts False Palestinian Charge: The real surprise in this case is that the Palestinians owned up to an error.
Israel and the Palestinians
• An Israeli airstrike killed three Islamic Jihadniks firing mortars at Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas captured an Israeli Skylark drone that malfunctioned and crashed in Gaza. YNet reports that the two developments were not related.
• Israel displayed to the press the weapons seized from the Klos-C. Take your pick of coverage in the Daily Telegraph, Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor.
• British Prime Minister David Cameron to arrive in Israel tomorrow. Benedict Brogan comments:
If Mr Cameron were to say that he recognises Israel as the natural home of the Jewish people, it would give him some capital in the peace process.
• US allocates $429 million to help Israel with Iron Dome production.
• Poll finds nearly two-thirds of Israelis don’t trust US mediation in peace talks.
• Worth reading: Parachute journalism leads to poor Mideast reporting
Kalman’s speech culminated in an explanation of the clash between journalist’s need to report accurate information and the need to maintain reader and viewership, and unfortunately, the latter is winning, resulting in less accurate journalism in the Middle East. This is because of both the need for sensational news stories but also because journalists aren’t taking the time to learn about the various Middle Eastern cultures.
(Related reading on parachute journalism: End of an Era)
• For more commentary/analysis, see Oren Kessler (do Palestinians really want a state?) Khaled Abu Toameh (Abbas can’t concede on core issues), Dumisani Washington (7 reasons why the Palestinian and Black movements aren’t alike), Andrew Bolt (And they wonder why there’s so few of us left to defend Israel), Dore Gold (Iran’s other Mideast weapons smuggling), and David Horovitz and Yaakov Lappin (Iranian fingerprints on the arms shipment).
- Israel watches warily as Hezbollah gets battlefield experience in Syria.
- New testimony points to Iranian responsibility for Lockerbie bombing.
- How’s the Venezuelan Jewish community faring amid anti-government protests?
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