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 Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death an Israeli at the Tapuah Junction near Nablus. The Jerusalem Post identified the victim as Evyatar Borovsky, 32 year-old father of five from of Yitzhar. YNet reports that the terrorist was a Fatah operative.
See more at BBC Terminology: Mitigating Terror: Two breaking stories, one news service, zero consistency.
2. The IAF carried out its first targeted killing in Gaza in months, taking out a Salafist rocket manufacturer responsible for recent rocket fire on Eilat. Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal was reduced to burning rubber, but Big Media ate asphalt with some badly bungled headlines.
3. Big Media calls into question White House red lines on Syrian chemical weapons. What does it all mean for Israel? More on page 2 of this roundup.
4. The BBC raised hackles with a last-minute decision to drop a documentary questioning the extent of the Jewish exile after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. According to the Jewish Chronicle, “a viewer who contacted the BBC to ask why the programme had been cancelled said he was told that “it might have been controversial”.” HonestReporting was able to view film, but the question remains: Why Did the BBC Pull a Jerusalem Documentary?
Israel and the Palestinians
• With World Press Freedom Day coming up this week, Toronto Star columnist Vivian Bercovici notes an entire laundry list of examples of Fatah and Hamas cracking down on journalistic freedom. So why, she asks, is Israel always pegged as the proverbial press predator?
Israel hosts what is reputed to be the third-largest press corps in the world, after Washington and London, but we have heard very little, outside the Israeli and niche press, about such incidents.
Yet an allegation of the slightest transgression on the part of the Israeli government or military in dealing with the media is parsed on global front pages with painstaking granularity . . .
This Friday is the UN’s World Press Freedom Day. Perhaps the media — as well as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas — should consider the values promoted by this event: a free press in which every person can express views without fear of reprisal, a critical element of any democratic nation.
At the same time, those responsible for international press coverage from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank would do well to reconsider complacent reporting regarding PA and Hamas treatment of journalists and dissenters.
• The Arab League supports the concept of land swaps. Depending on who you read, this is a softening, a possible breakthrough, or a sea change.
• The Daily Telegraph‘s Phoebe Greenwood reports that Hamas’s modesty police are continuing their reign of punitive haircuts. Excellent dispatch with lots of other examples of Gaza’s Islamization.
During their six years running Gaza, Hamas security forces have used thuggish tactics against political opponents.
But a violently enforced public modesty campaign is new. This latest trend of punitive head shaving has shocked a conflict and poverty hardened community. Gaza is gripped with a palpable fear that Hamas is driving the population towards unapologetic, militant, Islamic fundamentalism.
And what’s Hamas’ response? Gazans enjoy unprecedented freedom.
• IDF appointed a new spokesman. Gen. Moti Almoz was tapped to replace Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai. But Haaretz columnist Amos Harel is scratching his head over the appointment:
And yet, choosing Almoz as army spokesman is surprising – and it must be hoped that Gantz knows what he is doing in this gamble. Almoz has never concealed the fact that he does not like contact with the media. In his last post, he intentionally stayed away from almost every encounter with journalists. It is difficult to see how he will now undergo a stark personality change and accept a position that requires him to constantly stroke of the ego of television presenters, listen patiently to the musings of an internet news site journalist or respond politely to the regular pressures that the editors of Yedioth Ahronoth will bring to bear as part of their ongoing holy war against Israel Hayom. Some of Almoz’s old friends would not be surprised to hear that he quickly begins hanging up on a few people.
- Dutch believe Israel’s carrying out genocide. Is the media to blame?
- Obama’s Syrian red line’s in doubt. What does it mean for Israel?
- Pope Francis accepts invitation to visit Israel.
