The cost of doing business: 7 things to know for June 30

1. A man, a plan, an arrest, Manama! Palestinian businessman Saleh Abu Mayala was arrested in Hebron by Palestinian intelligence forces Saturday, in a move apparently connected to his participation in the US-led Bahrain economics workshop.

• Mayala’s brother tells Reuters that “Salah attended a wedding party for a family member yesterday and then he disappeared. We haven’t seen him since.”
• The AP reports that another participant, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said he and the other Palestinian attendees feel they are in “great danger,” having been threatened by the government and on social media.
• One of those was Ashraf Ghanam, who managed to successfully flee to an Israeli-controlled part of the city, ToI’s Adam Rasgon reports, citing another businessman.
• “We are being pursued and threatened. All of us are in a precarious position,” says a businessman. “Why is it that people working on advancing peace and building a better future receive this type of treatment?”

2. Let my businessman go: By late Saturday night, the Israeli Maariv and Jerusalem Post newspapers (which have the same owner) report that Mayala was released, after the US threatened them.

• The report is unsourced except for a vague reference to “Palestinian reports,” and nobody else carries it.
• However, US envoy Jason Greenblatt tweets out a link to the story at about 4 a.m. Sunday and the comment that the US is “pleased.”

https://twitter.com/jdgreenblatt45/status/1145122997969145856

• Greenblatt’s comment is widely covered in the Hebrew media as the US announcing that Mayala was released, though it’s unclear if he was doing anything more than commenting on the JPost story.

3. Bad Boys: Haaretz reports that at least in Israel, arrests are down.

• A report by the Public Defender’s Office released Sunday shows a 10 percent drop in arrests year over year, down to 53,000. It’s the first time “in years” that the number has done down, according to the paper.
• Ynet reports that the study accuses the police and prosecutor of having too quick a trigger finger when it comes to charging people, citing specifically a case where a woman threw yogurt at her ex-husband who she happened to see working behind a counter at a corner store, or a homeless man who spat at a security guard.
• It also shines a light on the Israel’s reliance on jailhouse informants, which it says runs counter to the practice of most other Western countries.
• Israel Hayom writes that the report devotes a chapter to police violence and the fact that only a third of complaints are investigated annually. “We’re warning about a series of challenges and problems that the judicial system is still dealing with,” Public Defender Yoav Sapir tells the paper.
• Giving absolutely no hope that the police may change their behavior, especially after the situation involving Mahmoud Qadusa earlier this month, the police release a statement that dismisses the report wholesale and calls the issues “the same old claims.”

4. Just need a little more time: A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas led to a sharp drop in arson attacks over the weekend, but not a total halt.

• “A weekend of fire and understandings,” writes Yedioth Ahronoth, counting 14 arson attacks on Friday and another on Saturday.
• But the paper reports that “Israel believes that Hamas is having trouble enforcing the calm and just needs a little more time. The next few days will be the real test of its abilities and willingness to keep things quiet.”
• An Israeli source speaking to Israel Hayom is less understanding. “If they don’t stand by their commitments, we’ll bring back the punishments.”

5. Southern discomfort: One can see why Jerusalem wants to make sure to sound tough, with Israelis in the south sick and tired of the situation

• Channel 12 news reports that southern residents are looking into filing an independent appeal directly to the UN, to accuse Hamas and other Gazan terror groups of human rights violations.
• In Haaretz, southerners are angry at Israel for not equipping them properly to deal with the fires and not doing enough to stop them.
• Alon Alsheich, who invented a firefighting drone prototype to help deal with the fires, says the government isn’t interested in investing to develop the invention and get it off the ground. Doing so would cost about NIS 700,000 and he hasn’t yet found an investor.
• “They told me at the regional council that it was a nice idea but that the fires aren’t a strategic threat, and anyway the residents are compensated for the damage,” he tells the paper.

6. Bear necessities: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is worried about the south, but the real south, Eilat, was holding an all-night rap sesh with Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich about how to save Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov Airport (Dov means bear).

• Eilat residents who commute to the center of the country for work or medical treatment say closing the airport will be a major pain in the tuchus, adding hours to their commute by routing them though Ben-Gurion Airport with all the other schmos.
• The state says keeping the small airport, on a prime piece of seaside Tel Aviv real estate, will cost the public some NIS 12 billion.
• The Kan broadcaster reports that the two will meet again later Sunday, but if no solution is found, the airfield will cease operations at midnight.
• Walla reports that the airport isn’t the only thing that will cease operations. The head of Histadrut labor federation is quoted in the news site threatening to “take wide-ranging organizational steps starting Monday morning,” which is union speak for a strike.
• The head of a group pushing for the airport to close tells Army Radio that the opposition is really political, and they could just build a modern hospital in Eilat with that cool NIS 12 billion.
• A recent non-scientific test done by Channel 12 news, in which two reporters raced from Eilat to a Tel Aviv area hospital via both airports found that the one who went through Sde Dov actually took 10 minutes longer.

7. Da Meeting Zone: While Netanyahu and Smotrich were talking airports, US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un were planning a meet cute in the DMZ, with the news strange enough to grab major headlines in the Israeli press.

• One reason Israel may care so much is what it says about the future of Trump’s relationship with Iran.
• “If Donald Trump can summit, negotiate and send self-described love letters to Kim Jong Un, one of the world’s last true authoritarians — a man whose country (like Iran) is on America’s state sponsors of terror list; who has up to an estimated 60 nuclear weapons; who has launched missiles at Japan and threatened South Korea; and whose record on human rights and abuses against his own people justifiably puts him in the evil category — why can’t he sit down with senior Iranian officials to figure a way out of the current crisis,” asks former negotiator Aaron David Miller in a CNN column.
• In Haaretz, a Zvi Bar’el headline trumpets the idea that Trump could end up calling Rouhani “dear friend” as well, though the headline writes a check the column does not deliver.
• In the same paper, Amos Harel writes that talks between the US and Iran may still be possible, so long as Iran can think it’s coming into them with some wins under its belt.
• “In order to go back to negotiations, they need to gather some bargaining chips,” he writes. “Iran is trying to achieve this by various means, including threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf and gradual violation of the nuclear agreement.”
• Speaking to Army Radio Sunday morning, former envoy Dennis Ross says Trump made a mistake in giving the impression he could have attacked Iran and then pulled back. He tells the station he’s worried about weakened American deterrence and the way things are going.