News Resources - North America and Europe:
- U.S. May Leave UN Human Rights Council, Amb. Nikki Haley Warns
Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.S. is considering its membership in the UN Human Rights Council, citing among other things its bias against Israel.
In a speech Tuesday to the council in Geneva, Haley cited Israel as one of several factors leading the United States to reconsider its membership. Another is the membership of human rights abusers like Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi and Saudi Arabia.
"It's hard to accept that this council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela and yet it adopted five biased resolutions in March against a single country - Israel," Haley said. "It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it is to have any credibility." (JTA)
- French Attacker Shouted "This Is for Syria" before Being Shot
A man armed with a hammer shouted "this is for Syria" before attacking police officers on Tuesday outside France's Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the interior minister said.
The assailant wounded one officer before he was shot and wounded by other officers. The Paris prosecutor's office swiftly began a counter-terrorism investigation. (Reuters)
News Resources - Israel, the Mideast, and Asia:
- Gunmen Kill Seven, Injure Many in Iran Parliament
A shooting incident was reported this morning inside Iran's Parliament. Four armed men attacked security officers guarding the front gate of Iranian Parliament this morning. The armed men shot and injured some of the security guards. A suicide bomber blew himself up on the fourth floor. The Ministry of Intelligence has confirmed two attacks at the Parliament and Imam Khomeini Shrine as terrorist attacks. (Mehr News Agency - Iran)
See also
Parliament and Khomeini Mausoleum in Iran Are Attacked - Sewell Chan
The assault on the Khomeini mausoleum was reported minutes after the attack on Parliament emerged. At least three or four attackers opened fire on pilgrims at the mausoleum, in southern Tehran, and one of them detonated a suicide vest at a bank outside the mausoleum, a spokesman for the mausoleum. (New York Times)
- ISIS Claims Responsibility for Attacks in Iran
Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the armed attacks committed on the Iranian parliament and the Imam Khomeini mausoleum on Wednesday, Iran's Fars news agency reported. (Azeri-Press Agency )
- Iran Revolutionary Guards "Protecting Qatar's Sheikh Tamim Inside his Palace"
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are allegedly protecting the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani inside his palace, Egyptian sources said on Wednesday. The sources added that the Revolutionary Guards arrived in Qatar under the cover of training. (Al Arabiya)
- Israel Capitalizes on Expertise in Counter-Terrorism
- John Reed
Israeli defense companies are selling expertise in tackling terrorist threats to police, governments and other clients in cities around the world. "Israel has some advantages in homeland security because of the very severe threat it faces, and the very tight circles between military people and the industry," says Amir Rapaport, publisher of Israel Defense, a trade magazine and website. "Israel's industry has all kinds of solutions including sensors, data fusion systems and other software, drones, and ground systems." Israel's defense exports last year reached $6.5bn, $800m more than in 2015. State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, the country's largest defense group, offers similar security packages fusing equipment such as drones and cameras with intelligence gathering, cyber security and command-and-control technology to track down terrorists, smugglers or illegal immigrants. (Financial Times)
- Saudi Dispute with Qatar Has 22-Year History Rooted in Gas
- Marc Champion
Saudi Arabia's isolation of Qatar has been brewing since 1995, and the dispute's long past and likely lingering future are best explained by natural gas. Qatar's natural gas turned Qatar into not just the world's richest nation, with an annual per-capita income of $130,000, but also the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. The focus on gas set it apart from its oil producing neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council and allowed it to break from domination by Saudi Arabia.
Qatar gas wealth enabled it to develop foreign policies that came to irritate its neighbors. It backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and armed factions opposed by the UAE or Saudi Arabia in Libya and Syria. Gas also paid for a global television network, Al Jazeera, which at various times has embarrassed or angered most Middle Eastern governments. Above all, gas prompted Qatar to promote a regional policy of engagement with Shiite Iran to secure the source of its wealth. (Bloomberg)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- How the Six Day War Safeguarded Israel as the Middle East's Democratic Anchor
- Michael B. Oren
At dawn on June 5, 1967, hundreds of Egyptian jets penetrated Israeli airspace. Israeli pilots scrambled, but too late; their planes were destroyed on the ground. Elsewhere, in Jerusalem, Jordanian troops surrounded the western half of the city, cutting off its Jewish population. Six days later, the war was over. Much of the Jewish state lay in ruins and untold numbers of its population - uniformed and civilian - were dead. The international community, meanwhile, remained passive.
Fortunately, it was Israel's air force that destroyed Egypt's and Israeli troops that captured the Sinai Peninsula. Jordan and Syria did attack Israel but were quickly driven back. Today, An Israel strengthened strategically and economically by the war serves as a democratic, pro-American anchor in a still-chaotic Middle East.
The war's positive results did not, however, include a resolution of Israel's dispute with the Palestinians. Their leaders continue to deny the legitimacy and permanence of the Jewish state - the very cause of the Six-Day War. Yet they, too, can benefit from the opportunities for Palestinian self-determination created in 1967. By acknowledging the reasons for the war and its outcome, they can relinquish alternative realities and reach a genuine peace. (Newsweek)
See also
What If Israel Had Lost the Six-Day War? - Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe)
- How Israeli Intelligence Failures Led to a "Devil's Advocate" Role
- William Kaplan
The October 1973 Yom Kippur War showed the risks to Israel of underestimating dangers to national security. It is the classic intelligence failure in Israeli history and it happened because the military establishment was captivated and captured by what they called The Concept of Arab Intentions - a preset world view that did not contemplate the possibility of an all-out assault.
A key idea that came out of the post-war inquiry was "The Tenth Man" - a devil's advocate. If there are 10 people in a room and 9 agree, the role of the tenth is to disagree and point out flaws in whatever decision the group has reached. The Tenth Man's job is to challenge conventional and received wisdom. The Tenth Man has high status within the IDF Intelligence Corps: it is free to obtain any intelligence data it needs and to criticize existing views. Its reports cannot be ignored; they must be considered.
The article is excerpted from Why Dissent Matters by William Kaplan. (Toronto Star)
- Saudi Columnist: Iran Is The Real Enemy, Not Israel
- Musaid Al-Asimi
This is not a call to demonstrate friendship toward Israel - on the contrary, there is tension in [our] attitude toward the country because it occupies Arab land - but as a Saudi citizen what can I do about Israel, when the Palestinians in authority have declared peace with it. Furthermore, several Arab countries that share a border with Israel have signed permanent peace agreements with it, such as Egypt and Jordan.
Who, then, is the enemy? Who is it that I should watch out for and beware of? Logic says that whoever threatens you and manipulates others to hurt you, is your enemy; whoever helps those who were duped by weapons and money so that you end up being abused, is your enemy; whoever invents conflict at the time of the pilgrimage to Mecca, foments fear and problems, and makes trouble so as to make you appear incapable of managing this religious ceremony [is your enemy]; and whoever instigates panic and cultivates ethnic divisions in your country and in neighboring countries whose issues are important to you, is your enemy.
The enemy is out in the open. Even more so [the enemy] speaks of this openly and points [to himself] as if to emphasize that you are referring to him. Is there a greater enemy to us and to our countries than Iran, and does Israel threaten, influence, or worry [us], or disseminate resentment and hatred like Iran does? Therefore, let us focus on our true enemy. We must do all that we can to defeat this enemy [i.e. Iran] and the most important thing is that we don't stand idly by in light of those who are duplicitous [i.e. Qatar], for the friend of my enemy is [also] my enemy, even if he is an Arab from the Gulf. (Al-Riyadh - Saudi Arabia - Translated by MEMRI)
- Video: June 6, Day Two of the 1967 War
Israel had succeeded in destroying two thirds of the Egyptian air force just the day before. Now, on June 6, the Israeli Defense Force engaged Egyptian tanks and troops in the Sinai. (Six Day War Project - Jerusalem U)
- Video: June 7, Day Three of the 1967 War
Looking down on the Old City of Jerusalem from its strategic vantage point on Mount Scopus, the Israeli Defense Force was preparing to strike the Jordanians. (Six Day War Project - Jerusalem U)
Observations:
Arabs Always Rejected the Idea of a Home for Jews, and They Still Do
- Peter Wertheim (The Australian) - This year is peppered with landmark anniversaries of key events in the history of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. A lesser known but no less important date is July 7, the 80th anniversary of the publication of the report of the Palestine Royal Commission, established by Britain under the chairmanship of Lord William Peel.
- It was this report in 1937, not the UN report on which the General Assembly based its famous resolution a decade later, that contained the first official recommendation in favor of partition based on the principle of two states for two peoples.
- The Commission found "while neither race can justly rule all Palestine, we see no reason why each race should not rule part of it ... If (partition) offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security."
- The Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shocked the commissioners with his extremism when he suggested that most of the existing Jewish population of Palestine should be forced to leave the country or be exterminated. When asked whether he thought the 400,000 Jews already living in Palestine could be assimilated into the country, he gave a one-word answer: "No."
- The Peel Commission recommended partitioning the land into separate Arab and Jewish states, and creating an international zone from Jaffa on the coast up to and including Jerusalem. The plan was never implemented. The Arab leaders met in Damascus and resolved that partition would be rejected outright.
- This rejectionist attitude sadly persists and remains at the core of the conflict. 400 surveys carried out by five Palestinian research centers in regular polls in the West Bank and Gaza has shown that during the past 20 years 70 percent of Palestinians have continued to seek an immediate end of the State of Israel. No peace initiative can succeed until this attitude changes fundamentally.
Peter Wertheim is executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
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