New York Times reporter Jodi Rudoren asserts that Palestinian fighters built tunnels from Gaza into Israel aimed at civilians, when there is no evidence for this unrelenting piece of Israeli propaganda
A leading Israeli journalist—writing in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest and most-prestigious daily newspaper—says “It’s Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid.” The author, Bradley Burston, a Haaretz columnist and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com, writes: “I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country’s settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply. I’m not one of those people any more. Not after the last few weeks.”
The politics of the Iran Deal have been a largely-Jewish affair. Sticking with the theme, Pittsburgh Jews accuse Obama of allowing a Second Holocaust, Israel’s ambassador openly works against the administration that welcomed him by lobbying the Hill, and Paul Pillar of the National Interest says that Israel’s machinations here are fostering “disgust.”
Bedlam stretched across the working-class Israeli town of Ashkelon yesterday after Israel reneged on what would have been a first medical visit by a Palestinian health official to Mohammed Allan, 31, a Palestinian hunger striking detainee hospitalized in the coastal Israeli city. For a second time in five days police dispersed Palestinian protesters in Ashkelon using force, and spraying heaps of putrid smelling liquid from a water cannon. This time, cloaking demonstrators, members of Knesset and Israeli bystanders alike.
John Kerry’s speech in Cuba last week said that the Cuban people will forge their own destiny, the U.S. cannot determine that. But we can’t be prisoners of history, and the Pope is encouraging us. All these lessons go for Iran too. Kerry surely intended the echo.
On July 25, 2015 The Washington Post carried an article by its Jerusalem correspondent, William Booth, on Israelis celebrating the one-year anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza. Booth’s report was entitled, “A year after the Gaza war, good times are back on Tel Aviv’s beaches.” The next day, Palestinian journalist Mohammad Omer, published an article describing “The beach: Gaza’s one lifeline.” No more than 44 miles apart, the beaches described by Booth and Omer are world apart, yet they are inseparably and perversely linked.
Haggai Matar writes in +972 mag: “Participants in the weekly protests against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil‘in were surprised Friday to find that the army was using a new tool to put down the demonstrations. For the first time, a small drone equipped with four propellers and a camera hovered above the protesters as they marched toward the wall and chanted slogans. I asked the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit what the purpose of the drone was; I have yet to receive a response.”
A new disturbing report released by UNRWA shows once again the toll the Israeli siege exacts on the Gaza population. For the first time in five decades, the infant mortality rate in Gaza has reversed trend and risen. The UN cites the blockade imposed on the strip as a factor which “may be contributing to the trend”.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says that “tensions” have developed in his friendship with NJ Senator Cory Booker over the Iran Deal. Then he holds Jewish-black relations and Jewish donors over the senator. A signal that Obama has won Booker to support the deal.
Michael Oren reveals the hypocrisy of Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East when he quotes an Israeli general on the US and the Arab spring: “To defend Western freedom, they must preserve Middle Eastern tyranny.”