Everything you need to know about today’s media coverage of Israel and the Mideast.
Irish Justice Minister accuses Palestinian group of cyberbullying. Is the Arab Spring moving to Jordan? And what do Arabs really think about Iran?
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Binyamin Netanyahu pulls off surprise maneuver, cancelling early elections and bringing the Shaul Mofaz-led Kadima party into the government, securing a stable coalition for the next 18 months.
• House demolitions are back in the news thanks to a recent recommendation from the Shin Bet to demolish the homes of the murderers of the Fogel family last year. The killers stabbed five members of the family, including a four year old boy and a three month old girl. They are serving life sentences.
• Irish Justice Minister Allan Shatter accuses the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Group of “cyberbullying” after Irish folk group Dervish cancels show in Israel to honor cultural boycott of Israel.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• In an LA Times op-ed Aaron David Miller outlines Barack Obama’s attitude towards an Israeli attack on Iran as a “very bad idea.”
No president could ever tell an Israeli prime minister not to defend the nation, but Obama made it as clear to Benjamin Netanyahu as any U.S. president could that a unilateral Israeli strike would be a very bad idea.
For Obama, an Israeli attack would mean higher oil and gasoline prices, roiled financial markets, regional tensions, a stalled American recovery and more attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. And for what? At best, an Israeli strike would buy a year or two until Iran’s nuclear program would be back on track, this time with more international legitimacy and support from the Russians and Chinese.
• Ynet article looks at how Israel is fighting back on campuses in California, which are among the most anti-Israel campuses in America.
California, one of the most liberal and left-wing states in the US poses a particularly difficult challenge: Most of the universities here are anti-Israel among both professors and students. On the other hand, Los Angeles alone is the largest Israeli population center outside of Israel, and all the universities have a relatively high percentage of Jewish students. So there is a big vacuum.
