Friday, August 17, 2018

Sir VS Naipaul will be remembered (The Guardian) Most of the obituaries don't mention Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey

Argentina, Paraguay Target Hizbullah's Tri-Border Area Terror Finance - Emanuele Ottolenghi (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)

Israel's Unsung Humanitarian Mission Saved Thousands of Syrian Lives - Yaakov Lappin  (Investigative Project on Terrorism) Israeli hospitals have treated 4,800 Syrian civilians since 2011, half of them children. A separate field clinic in the Golan Heights treated 6,000 Syrian civilians since last year.

From Honest Reporting: The latest Mideast reports picked up by Times of Israel, Haaretz, Ynet and Israel HaYom on a possibly emerging ceasefire deal say it will last for one year and establish a Cyprus-Gaza shipping connection which Israel would have security control of. The deal would also include “Qatari funding for Gaza’s electricity bills in cooperation with Israel, and Qatari payment of civil service employees’ salaries in Gaza in cooperation with Egypt.” 
PA Leader Abbas: We Will Thwart Trump's Peace Plan - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the PLO Central Council in Ramallah on Wednesday, "We were the first to fight against [Trump's "Deal of the Century"] and we will continue to fight against it until it falls." Abbas also pledged to continue payments to Palestinian security prisoners and families of "martyrs" killed while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel.    Meanwhile, Abbas' ruling Fatah faction on Wednesday criticized the current discussions in Cairo aimed at reaching a truce between Hamas and Israel and said the PLO was the only party authorized to make such a deal. 
Tough Times for Palestinians Detained by Israel: Picnics, Parties, Singalongs - Liel Leibovitz (Tablet) Last December, a 17-year-old Palestinian woman named Ahed Tamimi assaulted an IDF soldier and was arrested and sentenced to eight months in prison. After her release, Tamimi addressed the issue of how young Palestinians detained by Israel are treated in an interview on Al-Jazeera.  Each day, she recalled, began with all the prisoners in her wing congregating in the yard to enjoy a potluck picnic. Then, mornings were spent studying for her high school diploma. Lunches were again a communal affair, followed by "having parties, sitting around together, singing, dancing, just passing the time, watching TV, jumping around from room to room, going wild." 

I was mistaken in thinking this Jeremy Corbyn incident was widely known in the US -- Note, the Labour party denied this happened, but Corbyn himself admitted he was there. Despite furor over his stance on anti-Semitism, and new scandal about honoring terrorists, the UK's Israel-bashing, hard-left Labour chief is still potentially on course to be PM 
Netanyahu Blasts Corbyn for Honoring Munich Massacre Terrorists - Benjamin Kentish (Independent-UK) 

Vox Just Makes Things Up - Gilead Ini (CAMERA)
U.S. Blocks F-35 Fighter Jet Transfer to Turkey - Lara Seligman (Foreign Policy)
New U.S. Iran Policy Chief Lays Out Agenda - Michael Lipin  (VOA News) Brian Hook, the new U.S. special representative for Iran, says his team will focus most of its work on changing Tehran's behavior on issues of nuclear weapons, terrorism and detention of Americans. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced Hook's appointment to head a new U.S. team known as the Iran Action Group. Hook said the group would work to pursue changes in 12 aspects of Iran's behavior as outlined by Pompeo in May.     Pompeo said the U.S. hoped it could reach a new agreement with Iran "one day soon. But we must see major changes in the [Iranian] regime's behavior, both inside and outside of its borders." 
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