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Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel strikes Syrian military targets.
The Israeli Air Force launched retaliatory air strikes on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights overnight Sunday, confirming direct hits on nine army positions belonging to the Assad regime — including a regional command center – after a 15-year-old boy was killed earlier Sunday in an attack on the Israeli side.
“The Assad regime now sees that it is responsible for the area under its control,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said. “We will respond aggressively and harshly against any provocation and violation of our sovereignty.”
A Syrian human rights group has claimed that at least ten Syrian soldiers were killed in the airstrikes.
2. Operation Brother’s Keeper continues.
Thirty-seven Palestinians were arrested by the IDF overnight Sunday, as the West Bank offensive to locate kidnapped teenagers Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Frankel, 16, and Gil-ad Shaar, 16, entered its eleventh day. The latest round of arrests brings the total number of detainees since the beginning of the operation to some 361, the army said.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Alan Johnson says that the kidnapping has brought the Palestinian national movement to a crossroads:
Two very different roads now lie before the Palestinian people. One is favoured by President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces are working with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to find the boys. This road leads to the eventual resumption of the negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, a historic compromise, painful mutual recognition, Palestinian statehood and peace. In other words two states for two peoples.
The other road, signposted “resistance”, is that being taken by the kidnappers, the unreconstructed radical Islamists of Hamas. And it goes nowhere.
As so-called human rights organizations accuse Israel of violating international law by carrying out collective punishment on the Palestinian population, legal experts disagree:
According to [Robbie] Sabel, the former Foreign Ministry legal adviser, Israel’s actions in the West Bank cannot be considered collective punishment as, he said, they were aimed exclusively at finding the kidnapped teenagers and weakening the terrorist organizations behind their abduction.
“It’s true that not everyone who was arrested is directly responsibly for the kidnapping. But the only people who were arrested are involved in Hamas, or were released in the Gilad Shalit deal and have since violated the terms of the release,” he said. In searching for kidnapped civilians, apprehending members affiliated with the organization responsible for the kidnapping is legitimate, he argued.
And lest we forget the primary reason for Israel’s operation, the Washington Post interviews Racheli Fraenkel, mother of one of the kidnapped teens, which also includes the following video:
3. Netanyahu urges U.S. not to work with Iran to stabilize Iraq.
PM Netanyahu believes that the U.S. should try to weaken both Iran and the Sunni Muslim insurgents currently threatening Baghdad:
“What you’re seeing in the Middle East today in Iraq and in Syria is the stark hatreds between radical Shi’ites, in this case led by Iran, and radical Sunnis led by al Qaeda and ISIS and others,” Netanyahu told the NBC program “Meet the Press,” referring to the group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“Now, both of these camps are enemies of the United States. And when your enemies are fighting each other, don’t strengthen either one of them. Weaken both,” Netanyahu added.
4. Join HonestReporting’s Facebook page dedicated to Fighting BDS and take a stand against the delegitimization of Israel.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• The killer of Baruch Mizrahi, the senior Israeli police officer killed Passover eve near Hebron, was a Palestinian released in the prisoner exchange deal which saw Gilad Shalit freed in 2011 in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, it was cleared for publication Monday.
• The divestment vote by the Presbyterian Church is straining ties with the Jewish community. Kudos though to two CNN anchors who ripped a Presbyterian official over the BDS vote:
• Arguments over the Australian government’s decision not to refer to the Palestinian territories and eastern Jerusalem as “occupied” rumbles on. The Australian newspaper’s editorial criticizes the Green Party for its role in the dispute:
In the volatile atmospherics of Middle East politics, semantics do matter. But in this instance it is clear the hysteria is misplaced. Australia has not changed its stance on East Jerusalem and the Islamic world should not be misled into believing it has. The Greens’ attempt to stir the pot is as transparent as it is mischievous and should be seen as such.
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Mark Liebler argues that Australia should stay out of the Middle East’s “semantic games”:
The Palestinians and their Arab allies want everyone to endorse their proffered language of “occupation” because it implies that all the land is already rightfully theirs, and they should not have to compromise on make or break issues like the claimed right of return, or meet Israel’s security needs, or agree to a final peace with Israel in order to get it back. They have used their overwhelming numbers at the UN General Assembly, which the Arab and Islamic states dominate via the Non-Aligned movement, to repeatedly endorse their preferred language.
These decisions are politicised and anyway, not legally binding. However, they have been distinctly destructive of peace hopes – with Palestinian leaders often promoting paper endorsements of their position at the UN rather than engaging in the difficult decisions and compromises required in negotiations.
As Ambassador Sharma noted, it is simple common sense for Australia to avoid becoming involved in such semantic games.
• The Israel Police have told the Israeli Attorney-General that there is sufficient evidence to begin investigating MK Haneen Zoabi for incitement after she said the kidnapping of three Israeli teens was not terrorism.
• An Egyptian court has convicted three journalists from Al-Jazeera English and sentenced them to seven years in prison each on terrorism-related charges, bringing widespread criticism that the verdict was a blow to freedom of expression.
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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