Israel and the Palestinians
• The Rio+20 summit came to an end without any successful Palestinian statehood antics. According to Reuters, “observers” (companies and individuals, not the PLO) will have to take the initiative on bettering the environment.
Arab Spring Winter
• AP picks up on reports of several high-level Syrian soldiers defecting to Syria. There’s conflicting info about the size of the group and the rank of some of its members. But something clearly happened.
• Max Boot thinks Syria made a “fatal mistake” shooting down a Turkish jet. But a reserve colonel and pilot in the Israeli Air Force told The Media Line there’s been a “lack of professionalism” by the Turks:
“It is completely clear that the jet came to a place where it was entirely up to the good will of Syria whether or not he would return,” Gordon said. “I don’t remember the last time the Syrians shot down an aircraft. I can assume that the Turks carry out these flights regularly and they saw that the Syrians didn’t react and each time got a little and little closer until one day on orders from very high up it was decided to show the Turks that they can’t fly around here anymore. And they shot the jet down.”
Meanwhile, a Time analysis pooh-poohs the likelihood of military escalation.
• Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl blames the White House for some of the Arab Spring’s failures.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived for a two-day visit to Israel, the PA and Jordan. NY Times coverage suffices. On a somewhat related note, Haaretz reports that Israel is transferring ownership of downtown Jerusalem’s prominent Sergei Courtyard to Russia.
• As the African migrants issue rumbles on, The Independent‘s Donald Macintyre pounds the pavement of southern Tel Aviv.
• Who wants to bet that BBC News will try to turn a profit from its Israel-bashing? According to The Independent:
BBC bosses have told reporters to think of money-making schemes and present them to their line managers at forthcoming job appraisals – raising concerns that the organisation’s prized editorial standards will be compromised by commercial imperatives.
The 2,400 staff working in the BBC’s Global News department, including the BBC World Service, have been told that they must now “exploit new commercial opportunities [and] maximise the value we create with our journalism“.
(Image of Syrian air defense via YouTube/TruthSyria)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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