9:38am
In the US, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League is shocked – shocked! – by the way the Obama administration has picked a fight with Israel over its plans to build more houses in east Jerusalem.
‘We are shocked and stunned at the administration’s tone and public dressing-down of Israel on the issue of future building in Jerusalem,’ ADL’s National Director Abe Foxman said in a statement... ‘US Vice President Joe Biden accepted the prime minister’s apology,’ Foxman said. “Therefore, to raise the issue again in this way is a gross overreaction to a point of policy difference among friends.
‘We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States,’ the statement continued. ‘One can only wonder how far the US is prepared to go in distancing itself from
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6:12pm
Good news: it appears that the BBC journalist Paul Martin, who was kidnapped by Hamas four weeks ago, has been released.
What’s that – you didn’t even know a BBC journalist had been kidnapped by Hamas? This isn’t surprising. Virtually nothing has been written about this. And even now that Martin has been released, I can’t see any domestic coverage of this at time of writing -- not even on the BBC website home page, although it does appear on the BBC World Service page. Compare and contrast with the tsunami of coverage over the previous BBC journalist who was kidnapped in Gaza, Alan Johnston, and the enormous razmatazz over his release. At NRO, Tom Gross makes this key point:
One of Hamas’ aims in detaining Martin was, of course, to further deter any brave foreign journalist
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5:47pm
The New York Times reports that the Palestinian Authority and Fatah have dedicated a public square to the memory of a woman who in 1978 helped carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history:
The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.
To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism. But, underscoring the chasm between Israeli and Palestinian perceptions, the Fatah representatives described Ms. Mughrabi
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12:30am
The Jerusalem Post reports:
The Palestinians and the nations of the Middle East will be rid of a ‘bad omen’ once Israel is annihilated, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, in a speech communicated by Press TV. Israel, a foreign presence and a ‘Western prodigy’ in the region, had ‘reached the end of its road,’ Ahmadinejad told supporters in southern Iran.
Well, I think that doesn’t leave much room for doubt.
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5:14pm
Israel is in the doghouse with America because it revealed during the visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden that it was building more houses for Israelis in east Jerusalem. According to Biden and outraged western received opinion, this ‘undermines peace efforts’.
Why? To be more precise, why does this initiative – or indeed any of the ‘settlements’ -- undermine peace efforts while the actual reason for the absence of peace, the fact that the Abbas administration has said it will never accept a Jewish state of Israel and refuses to renounce the Arab aim of ending Israel's existence, the sole reason for eight decades of aggression, terrorism and war in the Middle East, is not even mentioned?
Biden also said:
the Palestinians deserve a ‘viable’ independent state with contiguous territory
Why? What have they done to deserve...
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10:22pm
The drug legalisation lobby group Transform purrs on its website:
As Steve Rolles heads off for California, I am at the UN's annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna for which Transform has ECOSOC special consultative status. We are here as more than just spectators. In addition to attending a range of meetings that I will report on over the next few days, we have co-organised our own event, as part of the rapidly growing campaign for an Impact Assessment of drug policy, with our colleagues at the International Drug Policy Consortium. We are particularly pleased Carel Edwards the Head of the EC's Anti-Drugs Policy Unit has agreed to speak, as well as the Chair of IDPC Mike Trace, and myself (details below).
What is the EU’s top drug policy official doing sharing a platform with drug legalisers?
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