Everything you need to know about today’s media coverage of Israel and the Middle East.
The MSM’s still looking ahead to an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities. And thanks to a self-righteous “tribunal,” the buzz of the Israeli apartheid canard is growing buzz online. Last but not least, Javier Solana mistakenly tweeted an Israeli notable’s death because of erroneous information.
Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Iranian Atomic Urgency
Until the IAEA report is released later this week, all we can do is ask questions.
• Dan Williams (Reuters) asks: Has Iran Ended the Begin Doctrine?
• Amir Taheri asks: Might the mullahs actually welcome an attack?
• Tim Marshall (Sky News) asks: Iran’s Bomb: 90 % Ready?
• Uzi Rubin asks: Is the Shahab-3 missile really a cause for concern?
• See the Washington Post on Iran’s international atomic enablers.
• AP: Persian Gulf states quietly approve Israel’s warnings.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine
• South African groupthink’s alive and well, as evidenced by the way the individuals involved with the self-righteous Russell Tribunal are now lashing out at Judge Richard Goldstone — who had the temerity to say there’s no apartheid in Israel. (Hat tip: Elder of of Ziyon).
• The Durban Daily News features dueling op-eds on the Russell Tribunal, pitting David Saks vs. Nurit Peled-Elhanan.
• She’s thinks she’s “just” an inexperienced college senior, but Rebecca Rosman of The Daily Illini aptly responds to the Israeli apartheid charge:
Israeli citizens walk a tight rope between dodging explosives targeted at them and standing up for the rights of all their citizens — Jewish, Christian and Muslim, Arab and non-Arab. It’s a daunting task. The debates over settlements, barriers and security profiling are ongoing and legitimate. But the accusations that Israel has embraced apartheid are slanderous — slander that my fellow blogging, tweeting sound bite embracing generation should note for what it is: a dishonest weapon.
• Point of No Return notes that Jews in Arab countries were subjected to treatment worse than apartheid:
Just to give a few examples:
Jews were not granted (or stripped of) citizenship in Arab states.
Jews had to carry special ID documents marked ‘Jew’.
Jews had their communal institutions dissolved or nationalised
Jews were subject to restrictions and quotas.
Jews were sacked from public service jobs.
Jews were not allowed to travel or leave the country.
Jews were subject to arbitrary arrest for being ‘Zionists’.
Dozens were executed on trumped-up charges.
Jews had their bank accounts frozen and property sequestrated.
Jews were forced into business partnerships with Muslims.
Result: massive ethnic cleansing such that only 4,000 Jews remain out of nearly a million Jews living in Arab lands 60 years ago.
• Elliott Abrams and Dan Diker shed more blistering background on this self-important tribunal.
Arab Spring
• Visiting Sydney, former JPost editor David Horovitz discussed Israel and the Arab Spring with Australian radio personality Mark Colvin.
• The UN’s envoy to Libya tells AP there are a lot of missing weapons, including shoulder-held missiles and mines.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• The Guardian’s readers’ editor, Chris Elliott, responds to the Deborah Orr controversy and anti-Semitism at his paper. Details and links in my response to his column, which I blogged earlier today.
• Some of the terrorists released for Gilad Shalit could still face the long arm of US law. As this NY Sun op-ed (via Daled Amos) reminds us, American anti-terror laws allow the US to extradite, try, even execute people who kill American nationals on foreign soil.
By the way, there’s no statute of limitations either, and the US has an extradition treaty with Jordan, where some of the terrorists were sent. See the Jewish Virtual Library for a list of American citizens killed in Mideast terror attacks (up to 2006).
• Canadian flotillista David Heap says he was roughed up by his captors, locked in a cell, and denied free communication with the outside world. None of that bothered Heap when the Hamasniks he enables did the same to Gilad Shalit.
Meanwhile, the family of Press TV journalist Ghassan Hani is upset he wasn’t home for Eid al-Adha. I wonder if Hani was among those who refused a deportation deal.
• Reuters: More offshore natural gas discovered in historically Palestinian waters Lebanese national waters Turkish Ottoman waters little ol’ Israel’s waters. The find comes on the heels of a Shimon Peres visit to Cyprus.
• Javier Solana apologized for mistakenly tweeting Ariel Sharon’s death.
• CNN, AP, and the LA Times, among others, preview this week’s Supreme Court hearing on whether US passports should say Jerusalem, or Jerusalem, Israel. And David Frum comments in the National Post:
The Zivotofsky case attempts to press the Obama administration on Jerusalem in exactly the same way that the Palestinians forced Obama’s hand on borders: not by settling the status of Jerusalem, but by obliging the U.S. government to express an opinion on the status of Israel – that status being, as Congress has long insisted, the rightful and permanent capital of the Jewish state.
• Were Israeli gov’t web sites down yesterday because of hacker threats from Anonymous, or because of a server malfunction? John Ribeiro takes a hack at the question (pun intended).
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Ron Prosor’s lunch with Marine Le Pen was “an error.” More at The Independent.
• Gotta wonder: Will BDSniks cry foul over locked out NBA players playing in Israel? (Hat tip: Israel Matzav).
FYI, if you’re wondering about the specific appeal of Israeli basketball, Haaretz notes:
International basketball allows a lot more contact than the NBA, and the style of play is basically team oriented rather than based on stars and individual talent. Foreign players cite the Israeli league as very, very up-tempo, which makes it a fun place to play, and the rabid fans and small intimate arenas are reminiscent for them of high-school basketball in America.
