Israel and the Palestinians
• I am happy to report closure on this Rube Goldberg chain of events:
- Report: Meshal says Hamas accepts a two-state solution
- PLO’s Erekat welcomes Hamas acceptance of two-state solution
- Hamas denies accepting two-state solution
• A NY Times staff-ed slams Israel for bailing on the UN’s human rights review.
• Alan Dershowitz slams an upcoming BDS “forum” at Brooklyn College. Clifford May visits Sderot. And residual commentary on the Sunday Times toon tempest from Roy Greenslade, Jennifer Lipman and Simon Kelner.
• Call it a hasbara headache, but I’m glad the NY Times, Christian Science Monitor, and LA Times shined some light on some of Beitar Jerusalem’s racist soccer fans. Why is this a story now? The team — which is the only Israeli club to have never had an Arab player on the roster — is introducing two Muslims (from Chechnya) to the squad. (I don’t believe the problem is as endemic as Jodi Rudoren’s interviewees suggested.)
Those fans probably skipped the much talked-about Masterchef season finale. The friendship between the final three contestants — an Arab nurse, an Orthodox Jewish housewife, and a German convert to Judaism — made for warm, fuzzy coverage of Israel’s better side.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Hard to believe its been 10 years since the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. I’m glad to see AP remembering the crew and how Ilan Ramon’s widow, Rona is faring. Ramon, a veteran pilot who flew in the 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, was Israel’s first astronaut. Tablet reminisces.
Tributes marking the anniversary will be held in the US, Israel and India tomorrow.
• Egyptian anti-Semitism’s not getting a free pass these days.
Germans Press Morsi on Slurs Against Jews As Berlin Marks a Somber Anniversary
• Israel HaYom: Israel and the Vatican reached a deal over the site of the Last Supper on Mt. Zion (also known as the Cenacle).
Israel has granted the pope an official seat in the room where the Last Supper is believed to have taken place, on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
Israel did not give up its control over the room, as the Vatican had demanded, but Israel did decide to allow Vatican representatives a special modicum of control over the site.
An additional caveat of the agreement is a tax exemption that Israel will grant to all of the Vatican’s institutions in Israel.
• Iranian crude oil exports rose to their highest level since EU sanctions kicked in last year. Analysts told Reuters they attributed this to Chinese demand, as well as the purchase of new tankers.
• AP: Iran’s poised to upgrade its uranium enrichment machinery.
• The Buenos Aires Herald slams the Argentina-Iran truth commission “investigating” the 1994 bombing of the city’s Jewish community headquarters.
It effectively means that in the best of cases if the commission does end up broadly endorsing the case against Iran built up by prosecutor Alberto Nisman (who faces an arrest warrant in Iran), their recommendation will be no more binding on Tehran than the current stonewalled efforts of Argentine justice with a colossal waste of time the only new element.
(Image of Abbas via YouTube/viddeooo2, Rube Goldberg via Flickr/tvanhoosear)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
