1) At the Jerusalem Post Khaled Abu Toameh provides updates on the story concerning banks in the PA controlled territories.
“In scenes reminiscent of the Second Intifada, masked gunmen took to the streets of some Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the past few days to protest a decision by a number of banks to close the accounts of Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons. […]
In the areas of Jenin and Nablus, masked gunmen took to the streets to join the protests, firing shots into the air and threatening bank managers to backtrack on their decision. A similar incident was reported in the al-Amari refugee camp, near Ramallah, on Sunday night.
Palestinian sources said the gunmen belonged to al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah ruling faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union, Canada and the US.”
2) The ITIC reports on Germany’s decision to ban Hizballah.
“According to Lebanese news website Lebanon Debate, the German decision constitutes a major blow to Hezbollah, especially in the economic aspect. This is so because, according to Western senior security officials, investigations of the CIA and the US Department of the Treasury revealed that Germany is a significant stop in the transfer of funds to Hezbollah. It was reported that funds raised for Hezbollah by operatives in Europe are transferred to Germany and from there to legitimate bank accounts in Beirut. In addition, the US uncovered that Hezbollah supporters who had moved from Africa to Germany were sending funds from Hezbollah supporters to Berlin, and from there to Beirut. The funds are funneled to Hezbollah in various methods: in cash, through bank transfers, and by currency exchange office.”
3) Writing at Opinio Juris, Jonathan Turner explains ‘What the ICC Prosecutor Did Not Say in Her Response’.
“Practising advocates know that what is not included in reply submissions is usually more interesting than what is there.
One of the omissions in the ICC Prosecutor’s recent Response on the issue of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in respect of Palestine is that it does not address the argument made by the amicus, UKLFI, based on the rights of the Jewish people derived from the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Indeed, while the claimed rights of the Palestinian people are given centre stage by the Prosecutor, the rights of the Jewish people are entirely ignored.”
4) The JCPA carries the results of a study that measured the general psychological well-being of both Jewish and Arab Muslim Israelis during the Coronavirus lockdown.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, our data, despite the limitations, indicates that Israelis we surveyed, including both Jewish and Arab Muslim citizens, showed good coping ability and experienced limited negative psychological consequences to date as a result of the coronavirus epidemic. This is despite a marked sense of worsening personal economic status and significant restrictions imposed by the government during the period of the study. We see these findings as evidence of the resilience of the population as a whole, which is likely related to a hardiness developed over time and repeated exposure to crisis situations.”
