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. Haaretz: Worried that Israel will withhold tax transfers to the PA, Mahmoud Abbas is seeking a $100 million a month safety net from the Arab League — specifically the Gulf states.
2. Bashar Assad resumed using chemical weapons, according to Israeli intelligence officials. The Times of Israel writes that they were used in a March 27 attack on rebels in Damascus:
According to the official, the compound used in the attacks was not listed among the chemicals that Syria committed to dispose of when it signed an agreement in September 2013 to give up its chemical weapons.
3. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, blames Israel for Palestinian wife-beating in a report (pdf format) she sent to the UN’s Human Rights Council and obtained by UN Watch. Here’s Pillay in her own words:
Women in the Occupied Palestinian Territory face multiple layers of violence and discrimination. The analysis made by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women in 2005 remains valid. She found that the combination of decades of Israeli occupation, the use of force against Palestinians by Israel, the different forms of resistance used by Palestinians against such use of force and the patriarchy prevailing in Palestinian society expose women to a continuum of violence in all spheres of life.
The mainstream media has shown similar skewed views. See Israel Made Me Beat Wife — Part 1 and Part 2.
4. Recommended Reading: The IDF’s Combat Cameramen: A behind the scenes look at the cameramen documenting army actions and disproving Palestinian propaganda.
Israel and the Palestinians
• PA sources told the Times of Israel they won’t backtrack on the international conventions they already applied for. And — buckle your seatbelts — the Palestinians are seeking greater Russian and EU involvement.
• This NY Times piece on Marwan Barghouti needed to flush out more detail on his terror activity. He was convicted by a civilian court for the murders of Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis, Yoela Cohen, Salim Barakat, Yosef Habi, and Eli Dahan, and for his role in a failed suicide bombing attempt.
• The Palestinian envoy in Prague was likely killed by decades-old Semtex hidden inside a booby-trapped book, according to a Czech report.
It did not explain why such a book might have been left at the embassy in Prague.
• Yasser Arafat’s former bodyguard told BBC Arabic that the leader lied through his teeth whenever he “condemned” terror attacks against civilians. See Memri (transcript/video). I’m not surprised. But when will Arafat’s admirers wake up and realize that Israelis weren’t the only people he remorselessly lied to?
• Arab neighborhoods that are inside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries but outside the security barrier are an increasingly (and unfortunately) ungovernable no-man’s land. Keep that in mind as you read an AP dispatch headlined Thousands of Jerusalem Arabs without water.
• The Israeli diamond industry is too hard for BDS to cut into. The Jerusalem Post explains why.
• For commentary/analysis, see Ben-Dror Yemini (John Kerry ruined what John Kerry built), Khaled Abu Toameh (what’s behind the latest Abbas-Hamas courtship?), David Weinberg (it’s time to roll back Palestinian maximalism), Jonathan Tobin (what peace looks like — and requires) and the Wall St. Journal (strive for conflict management rather than a final status deal — click via Google News).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Journalism or conspiracy theorizing? Seymour Hersh reports that an August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria was carried out by rebels acting at Turkey’s bidding as Ankara sought to compel the US intervention. It’s based on anonymous sources, so take Hersh with a dose of skepticism. Ankara and Washington both dismissed the story.
• The Israeli slang word that best sums up this Israeli media controversy, I think, is fashla.
• Imagine the outrage if Israel did something like this:
Putin orders crackdown on NGOs after Ukraine
(Image of Pillay via UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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