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Today’s Top Stories
1. Terror strikes Boston. See below for a surprising number of Israel-angles.
2. What Does Yom Ha’atzmaut Mean to You? HonestReporting was in the streets of Jerusalem on Independence Day taking Israel’s pulse.
3. Rockets fired at Eilat: no reports of injuries or damage but airport closed as precaution. Sinai jihadists claimed responsibility for firing two Grads, though the Egyptian army denied the rockets came from its territory. Jordanian officials Jordanian officials denied reports that rockets landed in Aqaba or anywhere else in Jordanian territory.
4. Syrian rebels won’t like hearing about this Wall St. Journal report (via Google News), though I hear the White House’s realpolitik thinking behind this:
They don’t want an outright rebel military victory right now because they believe, in the words of one senior official, that the “good guys” may not come out on top.
Administration officials fear that with Islamists tied to al Qaeda increasingly dominating the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, too swift a rebel victory would undercut hopes for finding a diplomatic solution, according to current and former officials.
Boston Terror
• 5 viral stories about Boston attacks that aren’t true
• The Times of Israel reports that a delegation of senior Israeli police officials, including “the commish,” Yohanan Danino, have already left for Boston to meet with US law enforcement officials, “deepening professional cooperation.” Also from the Times of Israel:
A top emergency medicine doctor at a Boston hospital where many of the wounded from Monday’s bombing attack were being treated credited Israel with training the hospital’s first-response team and readying it to deal with mass-casualty incidents.
• According to Daily Telegraph live-blogging, “competitors from Gaza planning to run this coming Sunday’s Bethlehem marathon have been refused entry by Israel on security grounds.”
This comes weeks after the UN relief agency, UNWRA, cancelled a similar event in Gaza after the territories Hamas rulers barred women competitors – a development the IDF and other Israeli official bodies made great propaganda play out of by parading it as an example of Hamas’ repressiveness and Gaza’s increasing Islamisation. Now Israeli authorities have turned down a request by the Palestinian Olympic Committee to allow Gaza athletes denied the chance to compete in their local event to travel through Israeli territory to participate in the Bethlehem. Human rights groups have condemned Israel’s refusal as a contravention of rules on the freedom of movement as well as example of hypocrisy.
• After covering plenty of terror attacks in Israel, Dina Kraft of Haaretz was a bit jarred by the differences reporting the Boston bombing. American hospitals aren’t as media-friendly, but what got her goat was how long it took for the news to spread:
Two bombs had just gone off about twenty minutes before, but regularly scheduled radio programming was not yet being interrupted in Boston. Then, finally, at the half hour, 3:30 P.M., an actual news update with way too much bad news: blood on the pavement, sirens, injuries and the names of hospitals where the wounded were being rushed.
If this were Israel, I thought, the radio would practically turn itself on to announce a terror attack. Within minutes of an attack there is nothing else on the radio but the blare of updates, eyewitness interviews and speculation.
• Worth reading: Munich, Boston and Israel: How Israel prepares security for major sports events.
• For more commentary Time‘s Karl Vick, Boston Globe columnist Lawrence Harmon, and a Boston Globe staff-ed on the word terror.
- Gaza farmers burn produce: blame Israel or the rocket squads?
- The Pentagon wants to invest more money in Iron Dome.
- Will the White House broker an understanding between Israel and moderate Syrian rebels?
