APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday August 7, 2016
While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
Quote of the day:
"The Munich Agreement didn’t prevent the Second World War and the Holocaust precisely because its basis,
according to which Nazi Germany could be a partner for some sort of agreement, was flawed."
- Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, comparing
the Munich Agreement of 1938 to the Iran deal
the Munich Agreement of 1938 to the Iran deal
Front Page:
Haaretz
- Looming Palestinian municipal elections could be a final blow for Abbas
- The masses - not Netanyahu - are the real censors of Israel's free press
- World sees Israel as a pariah state, senior government official says
- Christian charity loses two top donors after Israel charges director with funding Hamas
Israel Hayom
- Lebanese Olympic team 'racist, anti-Semitic' for humiliating Israelis, says minister
- PM reaffirms alliance with US, rebukes Obama's Iran deal remarks
- Hamas operative killed in yet another tunnel collapse
- German university drops biased seminar on Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Times of Israel
- Baghdad to destroy home of Jew who helped form modern Iraq
- Police disarm pipe bomb near Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem
- Netanyahu said blindsided by Lieberman's Iran-Munich deal comparison
- Russia, not Hezbollah, sent drone into Israel - report
Ynet News
- Israel continues to save Syrian lives
- Israeli, Swedish flags at Malmo LGBT march
- Iran confirms execution of nuclear scientist leaking information to US
- Bodies of 2 Israelis found in Georgian mountains
News Summary:
Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry is working to change the international community's perception of Israel as a pariah state - the stated goals are to reverse the equation of Israel with apartheid and that by 2025 "no one in the world will question Israel's right to exist." The ministry wouldn't disclose details of their work due to sensitivity concerns, but their 2016 day-to-day budget was revealed to be $11.4 million.
Palestinian elections will be held for more than 400 municipal and local councils on October 8, and Hamas has committed their participation. This has many, particularly senior Israeli officials, concerned about Fatah's future standing.
World Vision continues to feel the consequences of Mohammad El Halabi's charges of funneling aid money to Hamas's military wing. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs suspended funding for World Vision's activities in the Palestinian territories - Australia had given World Vision $3.8 million over the past 5 years for Gaza aid - and Germany has frozen all of their funding for World Vision indefinitely, totaling $1.6 million.
Quick Hits:
- It was reported today that last week when eight Syrians were severely injured in artillery strikes on a hospital, they were evacuated from Syria to Israel by the IDF. Dozens of IDF paramedics and doctors worked under cover of darkness to treat them. Two of the eight were children. (YNET)
- A new poll conducted for Army Radio that was released Sunday shows that the Zionist Union Party would sink to its lowest level ever. The party, led by Yitzhak Herzog, would lose two-thirds of its strength if the elections were held today. (Arutz Sheva)
- Newly published diaries of the first KGB chief state that the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was killed on Stalin's orders in a Soviet prison in 1947. Wallenberg disappeared in 1945 and saved tens of thousands of Jews by issuing protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings that were Swedish territory. (Haaretz)
- Google is being criticized for removing Palestine from its maps program. A Palestinian Journalists' forum has denounced Google for deleting the name of Palestine from its maps and replacing it with Israel. This group issued a statement arguing, "the move is designed to falsify history, geography, and the Palestinian people's right to their homeland...." (Middle East Monitor)
- 200 Hamas prisoners ended their hunger strike after making a deal with Israel's Prison Service to stop strip searches and improve prison conditions. (Al Jazeera)
- Israel's ultra-Orthodox community continues to oppose the proposed Sabbath law. The current version of the proposed law would "ban businesses, industry and commercial ventures from operating on the Sabbath. However, it would allow commercial centers in industrial zones to begin work in the late Saturday afternoon hours. At the same time, it would allow small grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops and convenience stores to remain open throughout the Sabbath. The law would even allow limited public transportation to operate on the Sabbath, along with cultural, leisure and entertainment centers." (Al Monitor)