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. Two of the news services most enmeshed in the story of Baby Omar followed up on the story — in skewed ways.
- Washington Post: It Doesn’t Matter Who Killed Baby Omar
- BBC: The UN “Disputes” That Israel Killed Baby Omar
More news services or their blogs picked up on Israel’s exoneration, including the NY Times, LA Times, The Guardian, AFP, and National Post.
The National Post also published a must-read staff-ed noting a bigger picture confirmed by the UN:
But the relative handful of potential violations pales next to the enormous scale of the military operation. Israel conducted 1,500 air strikes on targets within Gaza, as well as seven naval attacks and several hundred strikes with artillery, but the UNHRC found that only 101 civilians deaths could be attributed to Israeli military action. Considering the densely populated nature of Gaza, such accuracy represents a level of precision essentially unknown in any prior war in history.
Every civilian death is a tragedy, of course, and every effort should be made to avoid such incidents in the future. Yet the report makes clear that many of these civilians were killed, not because Israel was aiming at them, but because they had the terrible luck of being in the vicinity of legitimate targets that Israel was striking in response to continued Hamas aggression . . .
But the UNHRC report can, and should, be read as further proof that Israel makes every reasonable effort to wage war against a determined, indiscriminate enemy with precision and restraint.
2. The EU extended sanctions to an Iranian police unit monitoring the internet, some judges and media bosses. Reuters notes that among the sanctioned news executives is Lauren Booth’s Press TV boss, Mohammad Sarafraz.
3. The Lede: Mullahs frowned on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad immodestly clasping hands and embracing Hugo Chavez’s very female mother.
So Iranian media photoshoppers created a new image of their president at the Venezuelan funeral. The new image features A’jad comforting Mohammed El-Baradei (who probably didn’t attend the funeral). The result lacks a woman’s touch . . .
Israel and the Palestinians
• Worth reading: Hussein Ibish looks at Gaza’s disenchantment with the Muslim Brotherhood, and why Morsi’s not more supportive of Hamas.
• An MIT rocket scientist has been sour grapes on Iron Dome since November. The BBC just discovered Professor Theodore Postol. You ask, Why does it matter now?
• Israel Apartheid Week came to an end. There was a ruckus over graffiti at the U. of KwaZulu-Natal. Students at Carleton U. said things were quieter. Canadian politicians slammed the overall movement’s activities as a “hatefest.”
• For commentary/analysis on the peace process, see The Media Line.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• What made Eli Lake‘s antennae twitch at the Herzliya Conference? Chinese interest in Israeli drones.
• There’s a French connection in these headlines:
- Israel, Jewish groups slam French town for honoring minister’s assassin
- Arrested Islamists suspected of planning attack in France
- In New York, Signs Of A Quiet Exodus Of Jews From France
• Addressing the EU parliament, Shimon Peres calls for Hezbollah’s blacklisting and discussed the Iranian nuclear threat. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• Reuters: UN investigators say Bashar Assad’s outsourcing the mass killing of civilian to local militias known as “Popular Committees.
• Ukrainian journalist/blogger Anhar Kochneva escaped from her Syrian rebel abductors after five months in captivity. The NY Times writes:
In an interview with the radio station Business FM, Ms. Kochneva said she “just walked out and left, and in about 15 kilometers I met some normal people who helped me cross over” to government-controlled territory.
(Image of Paris via Flickr/Thomas Claveirole)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
