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. Ayatollah Khameini ordered the Revolutionary Guards to intensify terror against the West. Thing is, the logic described by the Daily Telegraph requires that Tehran’s involvement with the terror be clear to everyone, not plausibly deniable.
It advised that the Iranian regime should demonstrate to the West that there were “red lines” over what it would accept in Syria, and that a warning should be sent to “America, the Zionists, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others that they cannot act with impunity in Syria and elsewhere in the region.”
2. Avigdor Lieberman sets off diplomatic firecrackers. The foreign minister wrote a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton calling for Mahmoud Abbas to be ousted through overdue Palestinian elections. The Prime Minister’s office disavowed the letter. More details at the Jerusalem Post.
3. The Vatican’s new ambassador to Israel is linked to the Catholic church’s attempts to cover up Ireland’s pedophile priests scandal. Menachem Gantz (YNet) calls Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto appointment an “embarrassment and a humiliation for Israel.”
He was accused of doing everything in his power to protect them. Lazzarotto, who served as the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland at the time, was thought to have spearheaded Pope Benedict’s policy not to cooperate with Judge Yvonne Murphy, the head of the committee appointed by the government of Ireland to investigate the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin . . .
And now the Vatican has decided to appoint Lazzarotto as its ambassador to Israel. “The Jews have problems of their own,” Vatican Secretariat of State officials may have thought to themselves. “Pedophilic priests are not on the agenda of the tumultuous Middle East, so we can show our appreciation for Lazzarotto’s loyalty during the scandal in Ireland by appointing him to the prestigious post of the Vatican’s envoy in Jerusalem.”
Israel and the Palestinians
• US to Corrie family: Israel’s inquiry into Rachel Corrie’s was neither credible or transparent as it could’ve been. Haaretz (paywall) broke the story.
• South Africa’s cabinet approved a law requiring settlement products be labeled as being from “occupied Palestinian territories.” BBC coverage suffices. See the Jerusalem Post and YNet for Israel’s blowback.
• Columnist Paul Schneidereit (Halifax Chronicle-Herald), Barbara Yaffe (Edmonton Journal) and a Calgary Herald staff-ed slam the United Church of Canada’s decision to boycott settlement products. Via HonestReporting Canada.
• In an exclusive guest post for HonestReporting, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses the Norwegian media’s distorted Mideast coverage:
The country shares a border with Russia. However, one often gets the impression that Israel appears in the Norwegian press more than its own powerful neighbor. Norway’s media are obsessed with Israel and many incite against it in various ways.
• Worth reading: Why the Left Should Not Call for Talks With Hamas.
But the need for the progressive camp to rehabilitate its credibility on security issues should prevent it from advocating a position so far outside the Israeli consensus as talking to Hamas. Such a gambit would likely exacerbate the public’s distrust of the left on security issues.
• Maan News: Israeli and Palestinian officials are meeting to avert a West Bank electricity shortage. The Israel Electric Corp. is demanding a payment schedule for $105 million owed by the Palestinians.
