Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories
1. Western governments are concerned Iran is taking a new path towards a nuclear bomb: producing weapons-grade plutonium, instead of focusing on uranium. What’s the difference? The Wall St. Journal explains that plutonium sites are more vulnerable to military attack, which “heightens the possibility of an Israeli strike.”
2. Palestinian refugees who fled Syria are discovering the morass of Lebanon. The Christian Science Monitor says there’s fierce competition for what few jobs available to Palestinians, “undercutting already abysmal wages, driving up housing costs, and aggravating tensions in the camp.” Then there’s this reminder that not all refugees are equal:
Additionally, cash grants and other services from UNRWA tend to be higher and more comprehensive than those from UNHCR, the refugee agency responsible for Syrian nationals displaced by the conflict. Since the start of the war, UNRWA has provided four cash grants to Palestinians from Syria, totaling a few hundred dollars per family.
3. Amer Taheri puts Hassan Rohani’s “Israel has been a wound in the body of Islam” comment in a larger context regardless of the nuances of the official translation:
With banners bearing the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s saying “Israel Must Be Effaced from the World,” militants burned US and Israeli flags in more than 800 demonstrations, according to the official news agency IRNA.
The anti-American theme was spelled out in sermons by mullahs across the nation . . .
Rouhani has made no secret of his desire to “de-couple” the US and the European Union to ease pressure on the Islamic Republic. The demonstrations signaled that desire, with no hostility shown against European powers.
4. Note to NY Times: Throwing Stones is an Act of Violence: Moral ambiguity comes with a cost. By allowing the glorification of violence to go unchallenged, the NY Times fails to hold the Palestinians to any form of accountability.
5. Reuters Kills the Mideast Domino Theory:
According to the logic of linkage, if Israel and the Palestinians would make peace, the rest of the region’s conflicts would quickly fall into place as well. Never mind that the region’s seething cauldron of ethnic enmities pre-dated the modern state of Israel by, uh, centuries.
6. Comments and the Roar of the Crowd – 4: Several readers disagreed with a recent roundup, and more.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Defense News: Israel waives sequester protection, offers to share burden of US budget cuts.
• Let Southeast Asian countries broker the Mideast talks, argues an Australian ABC News commentary. Memo to Dr. Eulalia Han: It doesn’t take very many cooks to spoil the peace process soup.
• For commentary/analysis on peace efforts, see the Daily Telegraph, Khaled Abu Toameh, Cal Thomas, and a Deseret News staff-ed.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Times of Israel: Quite a few Palestinians are caught on the wrong side of Egypt’s anti-terror offensive in the Sinai:
. . . the Egyptian army has arrested 90 suspected terrorists, 7 of whom were West Bank Palestinians, and that 60 armed militants were killed, including 30 Palestinians.
• A pair of rockets landed near Lebanon’s presidential palace. Whodunnit? An Al-Arabiya commentary blames Hezbollah.
• Bashar Assad made a rare televised speech, promising to “stamp out” the civil war. Daily Telegraph coverage suffices.
• NY Times: Trying to shore up the plummeting Syrian pound, Assad banned the use of foreign currency for business deals.
• Although US missions in Israel will reopen, other embassies and consulates in the Mideast will remain closed “out of an abundance of caution,” according to the State Dept.
(Image of flag burning via YouTube/RussiaToday)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
