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Today’s Top Stories
1. Haaretz: Israel seeks the return of PA forces to Gaza and the disarming of Hamas.
2. Pope Francis hosted Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas for a prayer summit. Best coverage was Mitch Ginsburg’s reporter’s notebook at the Times of Israel.
“This pope knows he probably won’t be able to make peace. But preventing war – that he can do.”
3. US and Iranian nuclear negotiators to meet for direct talks in Geneva today:
Neither the location nor the program of the two-day meeting have been announced.
The main issue however is expected to be finding a route toward an eventual lifting of sanctions.
4. Misinformed Moderation: He Was Thrown Under a Bus: The Christian Science Monitor’s example of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation was overtaken by an unfortunate turn of events.
Israel and the Palestinians
• My antennae twitching over this LA Times correction.
An earlier version of this post said Pope Francis hosted a prayer meeting at Vatican for the presidents of Israel and Palestine. The meeting was with the presidents of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
I’m not sure about the distinction between the Palestine and the Palestinian Authority, but as Jonathan Schanzer once pointed out, the real muddying of waters is distinguishing between the “state of Palestine” and the PLO.
• Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken responds to tweets pointing out the inherent racism of a recent article critiqued by HonestReporting. Schocken still refuses to acknowledge anything wrong with giving a the apartheid smear a soapbox in his paper. Hardly surprising, since he already admitted Haaretz’s politicized agenda.
• UN envoy Robert Serry visited newly appointed Palestinian government ministers in Gaza. Jerusalem Post coverage.
• For more commentary/analysis, see William Jacobson (Australia just made an enormous contribution to the peace process), Aaron Menenburg (how corruption eats the Palestinians alive), Dani Dayan (peaceful non-reconciliation), and Jonathan D. Halevi (“Cold-Blooded Murder” or a War on Terror?).
(Image of Vatican via YouTube/Catholic News Service)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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