Israel and the Palestinians
• Heh. Reuters reports that the Swiss lab tasked with investigating Yasser Arafat’s death wants a guarantee that its findings won’t be used for political purposes. This is the Mideast we’re talking about — even the humus is political. Politics is the raison d’etre for digging up Arafat, and the longer the PA drags this out, the harder it’ll be for them to back off.
• Israel arrested two Palestinians who confessed to taking part in the infamous Ramallah lynch of October, 2000. Riccardo Cristiano, where are you?
• Maan News: Palestinian man beats sister to death, Israel not blamed.
• Uncle Sam’s pressing the PA to delay its newest unilateral statehood bid, but AFP says the Palestinians are moving full speed ahead.
• I’m impressed: Sports Illustrated profiles Ankie Spitzer.
Spitzer bristles when she hears that she “devoted her life” to honoring her husband’s memory. She had three more children. As a journalist — one who speaks a half dozen languages — she has traveled the world. She once interviewed Yasser Arafat and spent two nights with him and his wife at their Gaza home. Speak with Spitzer and, within seconds, it’s clear that this is a not woman who’s been incapacitated by grief.
Still, she’s been fiercely determined in seeking accountability for the Munich massacre and proper honor paid to her husband and his 10 teammates.
“What’s right is right,” she says. “What happened then isn’t right. What happened since isn’t right.”
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Must read: Having returned from Israel, Foreign Policy‘s John Hannah shares some prescient observations about the country’s relating to Iran and the Arab Spring.
• Saudis to Israel: We’ll intercept any IAF aircraft en route to Iran.
The explicit message was transmitted via the United States, during talks with Obama administration officials in Jerusalem.
Senior Israeli officials have claimed that the Americans are leveraging the Saudi threat in an attempt to dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral offensive on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some sources estimate that Saudi Arabia, which is equipped with American-made fighter jets, would have allowed Israel to cross its airspace if the latter would have coordinated its military operation with the White House . . .
While Washington is trying to stall any military attack against Iran, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the United States was pushing its Gulf allies to set up a regional missile defense system aimed at protecting strategic areas including military bases and infrastructure from an Iranian attack.
• Murky Plots and Attacks Tied to Shadow War of Israel and Iran
• Iranian vice president visits Mohammed Morsi. The LA Times says the meeting was primarily a symbolic boost for Tehran.
• Christine Williams: Shut Down Iran’s Embassy in Canada:
A chilling fact pointed out by Assadollahi is that Iran’s cultural consulates working overseas are directly supervised by delegates from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office, with the strict expectations of the embassies to find the weakness of that country and to increase its own supporters politically, economically and culturally. The coordinated efforts of the Ministry of Intelligence, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ministry of Islamic Cultural Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are also at work according to translator Assadollahi.
• See also a NY Daily News staff-ed on Iran’s nuclear program.
Arab Spring Winter
• Iran’s foreign minister got Washington Post op-ed space to share Iran’s official view on the Syrian civil war. Contrast it with an Asharq al-Awsat commentary: Assad Under Iranian Guardianship.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Wall Street Journal: The phone hacking scandal has so far cost News Corp. $224 million.
(Image of Arafat via YouTube/TVPTLUDGER; jet via Flickr/Israel Defense Forces)
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