• Can BDS ignore the fact that Justin Timberlake’s performing in Tel Aviv tonight, and that an Instagram photo he posted of himself at the Western Wall has been liked 233,000 times?
• After hosting former Israeli and Saudi intelligence chiefs Amos Yadlin and Prince Turki al-Faisal at a public forum in Brussels, David Ignatius shares his thoughts on the dialogue we need more of.
What the Brussels meeting showed me, finally, is that Israel and Saudi Arabia agree on most other major security issues in the region, if they could just broker a Palestinian settlement.
• A Chicago Tribune staff-ed slams the campus movement to divest from Israel (and in companies using fossil fuels). One snippet unexpectedly debunking the South African boycott model caught my attention:
UCLA economist Ivo Welch says the vaunted success of the South Africa divestment program is mostly a myth. His research indicates that divestment by universities and state pension funds “had no discernible effect on the valuation of companies that were being divested, either short-term or long-term.” He also found no effect on the South African economy. “Individual divestments, either as economic or symbolic pressure, have never succeeded in getting companies or countries to change,” he writes.
University divestment is offered as a proven path to forcing needed change. This time around, though, it looks like a blind alley.
• For more commentary/analysis, see Nadav Shragai (reaffirming our commitment to Jerusalem), Benny Avni (why the pope’s peace plan won’t pay off), and The Atlantic (papal visit wasn’t about Mideast conflict).
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Wall St. Journal: Iran has kept intact the core members of its nuclear weaponization team.
• Investing in Iran frequently means “casting your lot with terrorists.” In a Wall St. Journal op-ed (click via Google News), Saeed Ghasseminejad and Emanuele Ottolenghi explain why:
Investing in Iranian stocks means, primarily, casting your lot with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated terrorist entity. The IRGC presently controls 21% of [the Tehran Stock Exchange]’s market value, all of it in sectors such as oil, petrochemicals, telecommunications, construction, mining and metals, which would top foreign investors’ shopping lists. The IRGC fully controls 28 publicly traded companies, including key players such as the Telecommunication Company of Iran, Ansar Bank and Toos Gostar Urban Development.
Investing in a company controlled by a terrorist organization whose record includes murdering Western military personnel and countless civilians isn’t just in bad taste. It can also invite serious consequences under antiterror regulations.
Western investors granted exemptions would still be vulnerable to lawsuits by victims of terrorism and their families.
Then you have the businesses tied to Setad, Ayatollah Khamenei’s financial empire but that’s a story unto itself . . .
• For more commentary/analysis, see Jonathan Tobin (will secret diplomacy Iran appeasement?).
Arab Spring Winter
• Pass the popcorn: A high-level commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was beheaded by jihadis from the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. Was this the foreign presence that Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned us about?
• Ahead of Syria’s sham election, refugees in Lebanon and Jordan are already lining up to cast their ballots. Things got ugly in Beirut when refugees tried to storm the Syrian embassy to vote. More at the BBC.
• Officials in Cairo are talking about giving the public an extra day to cast their ballots because of low voter turnout (call it another example of Calvinball in Cairo). According to the NY Times, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s victory is a foregone conclusion but what’s at stake is his legitimacy:
The only question was turnout: Would Mr. Sisi exceed the 13.2 million votes that Mr. Morsi received to win the 2012 presidential election?
• Israeli journalist Hillel Schenker discussed Israeli views of the Egyptian elections with CNN.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Was Hezbollah behind the Brussels shooting? Or perhaps Al-Qaeda? It’s no more far-fetched than speculation that Emmanuel and Miriam Riva were somehow tied to Israeli intelligence.
• Israel rescues Ukrainian Jews stranded by fighting.
• Jerusalem’s troubled by the rise of far-right parties in European elections. The Times of Israel got the first real reaction from an (anonymous) Israeli official:
“Of course it’s our business. We’re talking about rise of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups who managed to get elected and gained institutional respectability and will be able to exert influence over policy making,” said the diplomatic official, who is intimately familiar with European affairs.
(Image of Swaraj via YouTube/NDTV, Blatter via YouTube/months notice)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
[sc:bottomsignup]
