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Media Summary

Mossad director met with senior Arab officials

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BBC News Online, the Independent and the Telegraph report that Poland amended a controversial Holocaust law that sparked outrage in Israel by imposing jail terms on anyone claiming the government was responsible for Nazi German war crimes. The amendment removes fines or criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone found guilty of ascribing Nazi crimes to the Polish nation or state. Lawmakers in Poland’s right-wing dominated lower house of parliament voted 388 in favour of the amendment, with 25 against and five abstentions. The Senate is expected to adopt the amendment later on Wednesday before it is signed into law by the Polish President Andrzej Duda.

BBC News Online reports that the Duke of Cambridge is visiting Jerusalem’s most sacred religious sites and his great-grandmother’s grave on the final day of his official tour. He has visited the tomb of Princess Alice,  the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother, at the Church of Mary Magdalene. Also on his itinerary is the adjacent Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, a site that is sacred to Jews and Muslims. Prince William’s tour ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is widely regarded as Christianity’s holiest place.

BBC News Online, the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Independent and the Mirror report on Prince William’s trip to the West Bank yesterday. Prince William has expressed hope for “lasting peace” between Israelis and Palestinians during a visit to the occupied West Bank. The Duke of Cambridge spoke before holding talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The Duke ended the day with a speech at the British consul-general’s residence in Jerusalem, in which he told Palestinians: “My message tonight is that you have not been forgotten…I hope that through my being here and understanding the challenges you face, the links of friendship and mutual respect between the Palestinian and British people will grow stronger.”

BBC News Online, the Daily Express and Metro, report on Prince William’s final visits in Tel Aviv where he met with Israel’s Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai. Barzilai said she felt “overwhelmed” after the Duke of Cambridge asked to meet her on his Middle East tour. “We talked about the way I changed how people feel here in Israel, and about self-esteem,” the singer told the BBC. “And how positivity and setting a good example for people is really making a difference.

BBC News Online, the Telegraph, the Independent, the Guardian and the Financial Times reports that Syrian government forces have stepped up attacks against rebels in the south-west of the country, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee and jeopardising an almost year old US-Russia brokered de-escalation agreement. Last year, the US and Jordan, who back the opposition, reached an agreement with Syrian ally Russia to halt fighting in the south-west. However, troops and government-aided militias are this week advancing on Deraa city as part of a renewed effort by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to oust the opposition from strategically important Deraa province, on the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights. The offensive is being supported by Russian air strikes. The city is divided into areas controlled by the government and the opposition. A senior UN official has warned that the violence could provoke a humanitarian crisis worse than that which followed the siege of Aleppo.

The Financial Times reports that hundreds of merchants in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar have shut down their shops this week in protests against a sliding currency that allies of  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani say are being whipped up by hardliners to push him out of office. Hardline media outlets have given prominent coverage to the strike. The Times reports that nearly two thirds of Iran’s MPs have called on Rouhani to change his economic team and turn around the country’s financial problems. They said in a letter: “The poor performance of senior officials in charge of the economy over the past few years has led to the population’s increased distrust.”

Yediot Ahronot and Israel Hayom lead their coverage with tension in the south of Israel and Gaza. This morning, Kan Radio and Mako report that IDF troops last night spotted two Palestinians crawling towards the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip, responding with tank fire to thwart the attempted infiltration. Several firebombs were discovered on the scene. In the course of the evening the IDF also discerned a cell of three operatives trying to damage the border fence and to infiltrate Israeli territory from the southern Gaza Strip. One of the injured was a 15 year old Palestinian boy who was taken to Barzilai Hospital in serious condition. Metal objects that were discovered in his pockets that initially were believed to be grenades but it turned out to be empty tear gas canisters.

Yediot Ahronoth’s military affairs correspondent, Yossi Yehoshua, comments that: “The powerful deterrence that the IDF achieved in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge lasted for three years and ten months. In the past two months it is Hamas that has set the rules on the ground. It threatens and then acts – while Israel is forced to follow its lead… this is a substantive change to the equation that reigned in the past several years in which Israel attacked whenever Hamas failed to keep things quiet. The Israeli political echelon and the IDF have adopted a problematic public stance, saying that Israel does not want a military conflagration in Gaza – and Hamas has recognised that to be true and has begun to implement its policy of attacking in response to every Israeli attack. Unless a change is made to Israel’s declared policy and its actions as well, Israel is going to find itself being dragged into a military conflagration in Gaza.”

Also writing on Gaza, Tal Lev Ram in Maariv quotes a government minster who said that Israel intends “to present a comprehensive aid package for the Gaza Strip within a month or two. The package will be presented publicly and directly to the residents of the Gaza Strip through various means. In any case, any progress in the plan will be conditioned on a solution to the hostage issue and the return of the bodies of the soldiers, Lt Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt Oron Shaul.” Maariv also reports that Egypt is reportedly formulating arrangement between Israel and Hamas.

Maariv reports that the Mossad director Yossi Cohen met with senior Arab officials in Aqaba Yossi Melman quotes a report in the new edition of Intelligence Online, published today, which claims that senior Israeli, Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian intelligence officials recently met in Aqaba, Jordan, to secretly discuss advancing the peace process. The meeting was held on 17 June and organised by Advisor to the US President Jared Kushner and US Peace Envoy Jason Greenblatt. It was reportedly attended by Cohen and his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Majed Faraj, the commander of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service who is considered to be one of the candidates to succeed Mahmoud Abbas. A day after that summit meeting, 18 June, Israeli  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Jordan held an unscheduled meeting to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the challenges posed to both countries by the Iranian presence in Syria.

Haaretz reports that Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev “placed a roadblock in the path of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to expand the mixed- gender prayer area at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem” announcing that she is resigning from her post as head of the ministerial committee responsible for approving such construction at the archaeological site at the southern end of the Kotel, near what is called Robinson’s Arch. However, according to a report by Yediot Ahronoth’s Itamar Eichner, Netanyahu fired Miri Regev as chairperson of the Holy Places Committee, which possesses the executive power to decide on that issue, and has taken that position for himself. Netanyahu appears poised to approve construction work to expand the egalitarian prayer compound at the southern edge of the Western Wall.

Israel Hayom, Yediot Ahronot and the Times of Israel report that Israel and Poland ended a bitter dispute over the Polish Holocaust law, with Warsaw dropping penalties for blaming Nazi crimes on the country and Israel acknowledging some of Poland’s concerns. The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which had strongly condemned the law before its passage, called the change a “positive development in the right direction” adding that “We believe that the correct way to combat historical misrepresentations is by reinforcing open, free research and educational activities,” Yad Vashem. Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid called the amendment to the law a “bad joke.”

Maariv also reports that the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee chaired by MK Avi Dichter (Likud) yesterday approved for its second and third Knesset readings, the new wording of a bill to deduct the sum of the salaries that the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists from the funds that Israel transfers to it. The bill was approved despite the government’s opposition and thanks to the insistence of MKs Elazar Stern and Avi Dichter and the public outcry on the matter. In meetings behind the scenes, government officials had demanded that the security cabinet be given discretion  to decide what to do with the funds deducted from the PA. The bill’s sponsors, Dichter and Elazar Stern, vigorously opposed that.

Haaretz reports that the Israel Atomic Energy Commission has been taking numerous steps to protect the nuclear reactors in Dimona and Nahal Sorek in light of assessments that Iran and Hezbollah see the reactors as preferred targets for missile attacks. Commission members have said that such a scenario is the greatest danger related to the reactors today. Recently the IAEC held a large training exercise that simulated a missile attack on one of the reactors, and included the evacuation of employees and actions to prevent a leak of radioactive materials.