Breaking point: 7 things to know for May 21

1. Hundreds of Arab Israelis protested in Haifa Sunday evening against the detention of the demonstrators arrested at a Gaza solidarity rally over the weekend that sparked accusations of police brutality.

• Protesters shouted “down with the occupation, stop fascism” and denounced the arrests of 19 activists in the northern city during a pro-Gaza demonstration on Friday, including NGO worker Jafar Farah, who sustained a broken knee in the aftermath of his arrest.
• Police said Friday’s arrests were “carried out lawfully and in accordance with procedures,” but did not offer an explanation for Farah’s injury.
• The Justice Ministry’s police internal investigations department has launched a preliminary investigation into Farah’s injury, and on Monday, a judge ordered the release of all 19 detained protesters.
• The Yedioth Ahronoth daily on the front page of its Monday paper declares the tensions in the mixed Jewish-Arab city have reached a “breaking point,” and the recent protests “cast a shadow over Haifa’s fragile coexistence.” The paper says that Haifa, the longtime model for coexistence in Israel, has become a “focal point for confrontation.”
• The Haaretz daily also laments the tensions in Haifa, castigating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a scathing editorial for deliberately “restricting the democratic space available” to Israel’s Arab minority.” The daily says “violence by the police against Arab protesters appears not random but intentional, part of an inflammatory and racist policy against the Arab community in Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is leading.”
• By Monday morning, a Haifa judge ordered all 19 protesters released, including Farah.

2. Like much of the world, Israel was swept up in royal wedding fever over the weekend. However, most papers were over a day late in publishing pictures from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s lavish wedding at Windsor Castle, where they were greeted by around 100,000 people lining the streets and watched by millions around the world.

• • Yedioth Ahronoth dedicates the majority of its front page to the “fairy tale” love story, with no fewer than six pages of accompanying wedding photos. Israel Hayom also dedicates a number of pages in its Monday paper to the “unforgettable wedding that it said “joined Hollywood with traditional religious elements.”
  • Less concerned by the pomp and circumstance is Haaretz, whose columnist Anshel Pfeffer asks whether Megan Markle can inject some much needed “magic” into the Britain’s most sacred institution. “This most unorthodox of royal brides could prove to be not only the salvation of the royal firm, but a unique asset for her adopted country in one of its weakest moments.”

3. An Arab Israeli MK close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday the PA leader’s condition has seen a “clear improvement” a day after he was taken to hospital with a fever.

• • • Abbas was hospitalized on Sunday with a fever, just days after undergoing ear surgery. The 83-year-old leader has endured a series of recent health scares which have revived anxiety over a potentially chaotic, and even bloody, succession battle that could further weaken the Palestinian cause.
    • Palestinian officials have said that Abbas has pneumonia and was on a respirator, receiving antibiotics intravenously. They said he was conscious and lucid. Ahmad Tibi, a Joint (Arab) List MK who is close to Abbas, told Israeli Army Radio that the PA leader could be discharged as early as Tuesday.

4. British Jewish historian Bernard Lewis, whose influential books shaped generations of Middle East scholars but whose views stirred fierce passions, died at an assisted living facility over the weekend at the age of 101.

• • • Lewis, who was born in London and was a longtime professor at Princeton University, was a Cold War hawk, a strong pro-Israel Jew, and influential among White House and Pentagon planners of the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.
    • On Sunday evening Netanyahu eulogized Lewis as “one of the great scholars of Islam and the Middle East in our time,” whose “wisdom will continue to guide us for years to come.” The statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said “We will be forever grateful for his robust defense of Israel.”

5. The Wall Street Journal on Monday published an op-ed by IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis in which he accuses the Hamas terrorist organization of “[lying] to the world” about the recent Gaza border riots and rips into international media outlets for accepting the falsehoods.

• • • The “modus operandi [of Hamas officials] is simple: Lie. Their lies support the stated goal of Hamas: the delegitimization and destruction of Israel,” he wrote. “There can be no such thing as a peaceful protest in Gaza, only gatherings organized, sanctioned and funded by Hamas. Calling this a protest isn’t fake news, just fake,” he said. Manelis says international news outlets had fallen for Hamas’s “theatrics” and helped its cause “by publishing its lies rather than the facts.”
    • Hamas, which openly seeks to destroy Israel, has admitted that 50 of the 62 people it says were killed this week during border clashes with Israeli troops were members of the terror group.

6. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday that European efforts to save the nuclear deal after the exit of the United States were not sufficient, and urged the EU to increase its investments in the Islamic Republic in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the pact.

• • • “With the exit of the United States from the nuclear deal, the expectations of the Iranian public towards the European Union have increased… and the EU’s political support for the nuclear agreement is not sufficient,” Zarif told reporters according to state broadcaster IRIB after meeting with EU energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete in Tehran. “The European Union must take concrete supplementary steps to increase its investments in Iran.”

7. The New York Times over the weekend published a report that senior members of the Trump campaign met with advisers from the Mideast who offered to help the then-candidate win the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

• • According to The Times, the group included Israeli social media specialist Joel Zamel, an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes, and Erik Prince, a Republican donor and the former head of the private security firm Blackwater whose sister Betsy DeVos is now secretary of education.
  • On Sunday, Trump lashed out at the paper over the “ridiculous” report, claiming the Times was widening the scope of its “witch hunt” against him because, he claimed, other allegations the paper had reported were proven untrue.