Israel and the Palestinians
• The PA began updating its voter registration lists. That’s a welcome sign, considering they haven’t updated their records in seven years. Hamas and Fatah feuding has repeatedly deep-sixed elections, so let’s not hyperventilate with excitement just yet. AP coverage.
• Obama’s Israel visit itinerary released.
• An Israeli soccer player with English Premier League team, Swansea City, was blocked from joining his team’s warm-weather training camp in Dubai. The Gulf state refused to recognize Itay Shechter’s Israeli passport. The South Wales Evening Post says the striker is instead training in Israel.
• Palestinian Catholics disappointed by Pope Benedict’s resignation, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
• Hamas leaders in the West Bank are keeping a low profile, reports The Media Line.
• Israeli-made lighters discovered in a Beirut International Airport shop are a burning issue. As if Lebanon doesn’t have bigger things to worry about.
Merhi told Al-Akhbar that the danger of marketing Israeli goods in Lebanon did not lie in Israel achieving financial profits, as much as in promoting the acceptance of the idea of having Israeli goods in Lebanon.
• For more commentary/analysis on peace efforts, see the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (staff-ed) and Jeffrey Goldberg.
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Maybe it’s me, but I think these two headlines are even more interesting when juxtaposed:
- North Korea’s nuclear test will boost Iran
- Iran calls for end to nuclear arms after North Korean test
• The day’s best headline briefly went to the Times of Israel quoting Israeli politician Yair Shamir. The paper wimped out and changed the headline. Strictly speaking, the Times ought to remove the quote marks in the second headline because the first headline was a direct quote. But we get the point.
“Look at North Korea, they don’t give a sh*t. They’re doing what they want. And the Iranians will look at that as well.”
• Reuters: Prime Minister Netanyahu warned that Iran’s new advanced centrifuges will dramatically cut the time needed to develop a nuclear bomb. More on the Israeli-Iranian tensions at the Wall St. Journal.
• Former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo on the Iranian-Argentinian truth commission investigating the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community headquarters:
“. . . Iran could use the truth commission to hide the responsibility of those responsible for the crimes.”
Arab Spring Winter
• Syrian rebels captured the Taqba Dam, the country’s largest hydro-electric dam. According to Reuters, its strategic value is limited, which is no consolation to the families of anyone who died for that dam:
However, the dam’s generating capacity has long fallen short of early hopes and, with power already scarce in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, it was unclear whether the change of control at Taqba would have a major technical impact.
• Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen slams White House inaction on Syria.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian seems to support the idea of a US drone killing Jonathan Dorner, the rogue cop on the loose in Southern California. Could Greenwald’s logic be extended to Israeli targeted killings? Just putting the question out there . . .
• Egypt sentenced Israeli Andre Pshenichnikov to two years in prison for “infiltrating” the Sinai. In an unrelated case, another Israeli, Ahmad Daif, of Umm al-Fahm, was also sentenced to two years in prison for entering Sinai without documents. Haaretz covered those two.
Meanwhile, Jordanian officials sent a 19-year-old Israeli home after being satisfied he wasn’t a spy. According to YNet, Yehonatan Levy accidentally crossed the border and lied to Jordanian authorities about his name.
• Foundation vows to put Israel on the moon by 2015.
(Image of lighter via Flickr/S Baker, moon via Flickr/Luz Adriana Villa A.)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
