• The Times of Israel profiles Father Gabriel Naddaf, the Greek Orthodox clergyman who is shaking up the Israeli-Arab community:
He has issued a call for Christian Arab citizens of Israel to reassess their Arab identity and to consider themselves indigenous Christians, of Greek and Aramaic origin, inextricably linked to the Jewish people and the Old Testament, and to fortify that bond by serving in the Israeli army . . . .
Naddaf wants to carve out a new identity and a separate community. He believes that in the coming years he can rally 50,000 Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel to align themselves with the Jewish people and with Israel. The first order of business on the path toward that new identity, he said, was “breaking the fear” that has gripped the community.
• Ambassador Michael Oren and Foreign Policy CEO/editor David Rothkopf had an exchange of emails “on Zionism, the loyalty of American Jews, and the promise of the Promised Land.” The two were roommates at Columbia University, and the correspondence is worth reading.
• Quite a few Arabs admired and praised Israel’s judicial independence after former PM Ehud Olmert was sentenced to hard time on corruption charges. Khaled Abu Toameh rounded up the reactions.
“How many Arab leaders would be left if they went on trial of similar cases of bribery and corruption?“
A Boston Herald staff-ed made a similar point.
• What a waste of pixels. In The Australian (click via Google News), Amin Abbas uses a twisted narrative to conclude that Israel arrogantly ” thrives at the expense of the lives of the 11 million Palestinians.”
• For more commentary analysis, see Danny Rubinstein (what’s the future of Israeli-Palestinian security coordination?), the Bakersfield Californian (face the facts: no apartheid in Israel), Moshe Arens (perpetuating the Nakba lie), and a NY Daily News staff-ed (Vassar U. cracks down on anti-Semitic Palestinian propaganda).
Rest O’ the Roundup
• The Knesset announced it will vote on Israel’s next president on June 10. Who will succeed Shimon Peres? YNet coverage.
• An Argentinian court put the brakes on efforts to whitewash Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community headquarters. The court declared an Iranian-Argentinian “truth commission” jointly investigating the attack — in which 85 were killed — to be unconstitutional. Reuters reports:
The deal had been delayed anyway by Iranian reluctance to move forward in implementing it.
The government said it will appeal the ruling to Argentina’s Supreme Court.
Hezbollah has also been implicated in the attack. See David Gerstman‘s background.
• Syrian war prompts unusual cultural exchange with Israel.
• Talk about internationalizing the Syrian civil war: Iran is paying Afghans to fight for Assad. The Wall St. Journal (via Google News) got this interesting scoop:
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, recruits and trains Shiite militias to fight in Syria. Details of their recruitment efforts were posted this week on a blog focused on Afghan refugees in Iran and confirmed by the office of Grand Ayatollah Mohaghegh Kabuli, an Afghan religious leader in the Iranian holy city of Qom. A member of the IRGC also confirmed the details.
“They [IRGC] find a connection to the refugee community and work on convincing our youth to go and fight in Syria,” said the office administrator of Ayatollah Kabuli, reached by telephone in Qom. “They give them everything from salary to residency.” Tehran is also offering them school registration for their children and charity cards.
• More mad mullah meddling: Iran’s Drone War in Syria.
• For more commentary/analysis on the Iranian nuclear diplomacy, see The Economist (despite the smiles, gaps are wide), The Spectator (would Obama bomb Iran?), Benny Avni (why the talks remind him of Get Smart), plus staff-eds in the Washington Post, and NY Daily News.
• The Jerusalem Post picked up on an in-depth report by Memri on Hezbollah’s social media presence.
• According to Reuters, Israel and several other countries have received crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds deny it, Israel’s not commenting, and Baghdad’s boiling at being bypassed.
• Israel should confront Europe’s handling of the Ukraine conflict. Manfred Gerstenfeld explains why.
(Image of Modi via Flickr/Narendra Modi, Issacharoff via Facebook/Issacharoff, Nadaff via YouTube/ShalomYerushalayim1, Argentina via Flickr/Leandor Kibisz)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
[sc:bottomsignup].
