* YNet News features an unidentified Arab Muslim teen from northern Israel trying to be the first Israeli-Arab to fly for the Israeli Air Force. A reserve pilot training the 18-year-old vouches for his student’s patriotism and motivation.
* In a JCPA brief on Palestinian press freedom, Khaled Abu Toameh says that there hasn’t been any improvement since Mahmoud Abbas took over:
Have things now changed with regard to the media under a Palestinian Authority led by Abu Mazen? Unfortunately, no. In the three major newspapers you used to see Yasser Arafat’s picture on the front page and now you see Abu Mazen’s, but you don’t see a change in the content. You don’t feel that the Palestinian journalists are really free to write what they want.
Many Palestinians hope for better times, but I don’t see real changes. In fact, I see very worrying signs. Under Abu Mazen there was a written order issued by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate that forbids Palestinian journalists from reporting on internal clashes. Under Abu Mazen there is a written directive that says cameramen are not allowed to take pictures of masked gunmen marching with their guns in the streets.
* The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group decries the fact that more Palestinians were killed in 2005 by other Palestinians than by Israelis.
* Martin Fletcher of NBC News hits the nail on the head explaining why the PA is desperate to stir controversy over eastern Jerusalem polling as an excuse to cancel elections:
Many of the older Fatah leaders are scared they’ll lose power to Hamas, or to the younger Fatah representatives supported by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.
So according to Israeli and Palestinian analysts, the violence may point to the Fatah dirty tricks department provoking disruptions in order to stop the elections from transferring power to Hamas.
But Abbas would need more than this to convincingly delay elections, like a confrontation with Israel over the voting rights of East Jerusalem Arabs, or a violent Israeli response to Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza.
* See an in-depth and moving Washington Post report on Lebanon’s continuing struggle to come to terms with it’s bloody 1975-1990 civil war.
* The NY Times highlights how sources unhappy with the way journalists quote them are fighting back via blogs.
