The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they happen.
Member of genocide association says group’s leadership pushed through Israel condemnation without discussion
A member of the International Association for Genocide Scholars says the group pushed through a resolution accusing Israel of genocide without holding a debate, as is its standard practice.
Sara Brown, a genocide scholar, says she has been a member of the association for more than 10 years and was on the association’s advisory board for two, four-year terms. Brown also serves as the American Jewish Committee’s regional director in San Diego.
She says the association typically discusses controversial resolutions in a virtual town hall that allows members to discuss the measures. For the Israel resolution, the association’s leadership declined to hold a discussion, she says.
“The content of the resolution and the way it was forced through speak to an embarrassing absence of professionalism,” she says. Among her qualms with the resolution are that it cites organizations that have reinterpreted the definition of genocide so that it applies to Israel, such as Amnesty International.
Emails shared with The Times of Israel show that the association’s leadership in late July said there would be a town hall discussion to discuss the Israel resolution, but backtracked days later, citing a vote by the association’s executive board.
The association also did not allow dissenting opinions to be published on its list serve, saying the list serve was not a forum for such discussions, and declined to release the names of the members who drafted the resolution, the emails show.
Brown says only 129 association members voted on the resolution out of an estimated membership of around 500. The association’s membership was informed ahead of time about the vote, but many chose not to weigh in, likely because they did not feel qualified to address the issue, Brown says.
“That favors those activists who are seeking to advance a false narrative about Israel,” Brown says. “It wasn’t rushed, it was just forced through without the usual transparency.”
The association has recently expanded its membership and there are little qualifications to become a member. The association had been mostly made up of scholars, but now includes figures like activists and artists, Brown says.
She adds that the expanded membership can be a strength by bringing in a diversity of viewpoints, but also “opens the door for something like this to happen.”
“The appearance is that this was a unanimous vote on behalf of the entirety of the association. It was not, and they refused to have a transparent, critical discussion,” Brown says. “The leadership, in my opinion, had an agenda.”
The public, she says, is “going to see, ‘Genocide experts agree.’ No, we don’t, and we were deliberately silenced.”
UN nuclear watchdog finds uranium traces at Syrian reactor that Israel bombed in 2007
The UN nuclear watchdog has found traces of uranium in Syria in its investigation into a building Israel destroyed in 2007 that the agency has long believed was probably an undeclared nuclear reactor, it says in a report to member states.
The government of now-deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad said the Deir Ezzor site that included the building was a conventional military base.
The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in 2011 the building was “very likely” to have been a reactor built in secret that Damascus should have declared to it.
The agency has been trying since then to come to a definitive conclusion, and under a renewed push last year it was able to take environmental samples at three unnamed locations “that were allegedly functionally related” to Deir Ezzor, it says in the confidential report seen by Reuters.
The agency found “a significant number of natural uranium particles in samples taken at one of the three locations. The analysis of these particles indicated that the uranium is of anthropogenic origin, ie that it was produced as a result of chemical processing,” the report says.
The term “natural” indicates the uranium was not enriched. The report doesn’t come to a conclusion as to what the traces found mean.
“The current Syrian authorities indicated that they had no information that might explain the presence of such uranium particles,” the report says, adding that the Islamist-led government had granted the IAEA access to the site concerned again in June this year to take more environmental samples.
The report says the IAEA is still planning to visit Deir Ezzor and will evaluate the results of the environmental samples taken at the other site.
“Once this process has been completed and the results evaluated, there will be an opportunity to clarify and resolve the outstanding safeguards issues related to Syria’s past nuclear activities and to bring the matter to a close,” it says.
Trump says ongoing war in Gaza is ‘hurting Israel’ in the court of public opinion
US President Donald Trump says Israel “may be winning the [Gaza] war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations.”
Trump’s comments in an interview with the Daily Caller echo ones he made several times last year during the presidential campaign, but he has not repeated the argument since returning to office in January.
He has recently began reiterating his belief that Israel needs to end the war quickly and tells the Daily Caller, “They’re gonna have to get that war over with… It is hurting Israel.”
But Trump also has indicated his support for Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City, asserting in recent weeks that Jerusalem must “finish the job” against Hamas and claiming that the terror group will only release the remaining hostages after it is destroyed. The IDF has reportedly determined that the Gaza City operation could take four or five months to complete after which Netanyahu has talked about a subsequent operation to conquer the refugee camps in the central Strip.
Trump is asked in the interview whether he is concerned about waning support for Israel in the US, including among Republicans: “I’m aware of it,” he responds.
He then pivots to highlight his “good support from Israel,” while touting the moves he has taken as president in defense of the Jewish state.
Trump notes that Israel had “the strongest lobby in Congress” 15 or 20 years ago, but no longer does.
“There was a time where… if you wanted to be a politician, you couldn’t speak badly [about Israel],” he says. “Israel was the strongest lobby I’ve ever seen.. They had total control over Congress,” Trump adds. Israel has “been hurt, especially in Congress.”
As he often does in soundbites regarding Israel, the US president then shifts to lament that “people forgot about October 7.”
Reports: Israeli forces kill Palestinian in northern West Bank
Palestinian media outlets report that Israeli forces carried out a raid in the northern West Bank and killed a Palestinian man.
According to the reports, an Israeli special forces unit entered the town of Tubas in the northern West Bank earlier this evening and shot dead a Palestinian while he was driving a vehicle. According to the reports, several others were also wounded.
There is no immediate response from the IDF.
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