But even the contours of the race aren’t set in stone, because nobody knows for sure whether New York’s Ninth Congressional District will in November be what it is now—Albany has yet to complete its census-compelled redistricting. The Times reads the tea leaves and guesses that the Ninth will be kept stet. But Sheinkopf is less confident: “If you can predict the Congressional lines, you’d be sitting next to Odin and Thor,” he quipped. And he explained one complication: “The lines are going to depend to a large extent on whether the Queens County [Democratic Party] Leader, Joseph Crowley, a member of Congress, chooses to get out of the Bronx, where he has part of his district,” he said. If Crowley wants to alter his district, according to Sheinkopf, that would in turn start a chain reaction in which various districts on geographic Long Island get pushed eastward (in which case the representative most likely to get pushed off altogether is Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat representing parts of Nassau County, including the Five Towns). And a Ninth District that is farther east—with less of Queens or Brooklyn and potentially a bit of Nassau County—is more likely to stay Republican.

But, Sheinkopf added, “Anybody who tells you they know the answer—except for the people drawing the lines—needs to be hospitalized.”

Democrat in Bid to Reclaim Weiner’s Seat from GOP [NYT]
Related: Republican-Jewish Coalition [Tablet Magazine]

• The United States formally levied the new sanctions on Iran’s central bank. [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]

• The United States has closed its embassy in Damascus and evacuated its personnel, for safety reasons. [WP]

• The BDS Conference, which was over the weekend at the University of Pennsylvania, was criticized for not allowing a Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reporter in. [JTA]

• Prompted by the Eddie Long fiasco, Peter Manseau considers the dubious history of “goyish Jewish mishagas.” [Religion Dispatches]

• Joe Eszterhas discusses writing the screenplay for Mel Gibson’s Judah Maccabee movie. [NYT Magazine]

Cat on the pitch!

This was a game that came down to two big late-fourth quarter plays: Brady’s incompletion to Wes Welker, his (and the League’s) top receiver, which would have extended the Pats’ drive and possibly allowed them, then holding a 17-15 lead, to put the game away; and, on the first play of the Giants’ subsequent drive, Eli Manning’s 38-yard connection with Mario Manningham up the left sideline. The comparisons of this play to the David Tyree helmet catch of four years ago were facile, even obscene: That earlier play was a bizarre, mystical instance of a young quarterback escaping a sure sack and aimlessly chucking the ball down the field and a no-name receiver guarded by a future Hall of Fame safety miraculously pulling it down; last night’s play was an instance of a proven, clutch, veteran, elite quarterback picking apart a mediocre defense and a favorable alignment with a millimeter-perfect pass. (Here is an excellent dissection of the two plays.)

Analyst Michael Lombardi noted this morning that much credit for the Giants’ two Super Bowls should go to Ernie Accorsi, New York’s general manager for more than a decade, who retired before the season of their last Super Bowl but a few years before had insisted on forgoing Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers for the services of Peyton’s scrawny little brother Eli (he also drafted defensive lineman Justin Tuck, arguably the Giants’ other most valuable player, and hired coach Tom Coughlin). Accorsi is Jewish.

Nextbook Inc. executive director Morton Landowne, a Giants season-ticket-holder for 50 years, was privileged enough to be at the game and emailed last night requesting a tutorial on Coach Bill Belichick’s decision to allow the Giants to score late in the game last night (and running back Ahmad Bradshaw’s seeming reluctance to oblige). Essentially: The Giants had a field position where, if they wanted it, a go-ahead field goal was virtually guaranteed, and they could have run more time off the clock to do it; Belichick was in a sense choosing to need a touchdown to win, with a minute left, over needing a field goal to win, with perhaps fewer than 20 seconds left. This was statistically the correct call. But the Pats were unable to score that touchdown.

And how about that halftime show! (If you didn’t enjoy it, you had set your bar too high.) Yesterday also saw the announcement that Madonna will launch her world tour on May 31 at Ramat Gan Stadium, outside Tel Aviv.

Earlier: Go, Pats

* Green Bay Packers (4), Dallas Cowboys (5), San Francisco 49ers (5), Pittsburgh Steelers (6).

10. Principal Skinner. Fought bravely for the Great Satan in Vietnam.

9. Lunchlady Doris. Married a guy named Freedman. Look it up.

8. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. Scurrilous polytheist!

7. Waylon Smithers. “As you can see, the real deal with Waylon Smithers is that he’s Mr. Burns’ assistant. He’s in his early 40s, is unmarried, and currently resides in Springfield.”

6. Kent Brockman. “Brockman,” eh?

5. Artie Ziff. Jewish millionaire voiced by Jon Lovitz.

4. Bart. For much the same reason the Czech Communists feared the Plastic People of the Universe: Bart is rock ‘n’ roll, and rock ‘n’ roll is subversive.

3. Krusty the Clown. Son of Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky. And they dare deny Jews control the entertainment industry!

2. Lisa. Lisa wouldn’t hurt a fly. Instead, she is an extremely bright, curious, inquisitive young woman who is never afraid to say exactly what’s on her mind. It’s difficult to think what could be more threatening to the mullahs. Except …

1. Maggie. Silent. Ever-watching. Omnipresent. Handy with a pistol. Could Maggie be Mossad? Iran can’t take that chance.

Aw, Man! Bart Simpson Joins Barbie in Iran Ban [Reuters]

John Banta and Daniel O’Donnell [NYT]

The Fatah-Hamas deal, struck by Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Meshaal with the backing of emerging regional power broker Qatar, is as vague: The only step forward appears to be clear agreement that Palestinian Authority President Abbas, of Fatah, will be president. Yet there is some reason to believe that this deal may stick, at least for a little longer than the last one: Both sides need it a little bit more now. The P.A. is losing support, while Hamas is newly active in the West Bank; yet Hamas, which just had to abandon its longtime host in Damascus, is going broke. Just generally, the Palestinian cause needs a shot in the arm right now: As Prime Minister Fayyad pointed out last week, the Arab Spring has sapped what has frequently been the Arab world’s cause célèbre of its usual prestige and glamour. (Fayyad’s future will be a major roadblock as the unity government goes forward: Abbas will want him to stay on as head of government, in part because he is a crucial guarantor of Western support; but the Western-educated, technocratic, relatively moderate Fayyad is anathema to Hamas.)

There is the inconvenient but unavoidable fact that Hamas continues to insist on the right to armed struggle and to all of the land between the river and the sea. The peace process, however, has long been premised on the notion that each side is going to give up something. If Hamas will never give that demand up (and it may well not), then neither peace nor the unity government will work. As long as there is even a nominal peace process, however, we are operating under the assumption that Hamas is capable of adopting, as a negotiating precondition, the assumption that Israel has the right to exist. (Again, not saying it will do this, just that if it doesn’t all this talk is moot.) Moreover, Fatah-Hamas unity was going to have to happen to make the peace process work: Hamas’ popularity means it will need to be part of whichever group speaks on behalf of the Palestinian people. The best we can do is hope that the prerogatives of power and legitimacy and its being cut off from Damascus and Tehran will exert a genuinely moderating influence on the group. So, while Prime Minister Netanyahu is right to repeat the line he used several months ago, during Reconciliation 1.0—that Abbas must choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas—we observers can at least entertain the prospect of future Hamas reform.

And it’s telling that, while saying the above publicly (Netanyahu also said the time was “not good” for progress), the Israeli government—which surely knew this deal was coming—has also made some interesting offers privately. It suggested that the current West Bank barrier serve as the future borders of a Palestinian state—which would make for a smaller Palestine than the Palestinians would desire, but that’s why they call it negotiating. And, intriguingly, Israel stepped back from demands for permanent control of the Jordan Valley, insisting only on a “long-term” presence. (Zvika Krieger noticed this change.)

If I were a betting man—and given that I thought the Patriots were going to win last night, thank God I’m not—I’d bet against this working out: Hamas still believes what it believes, which is that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist, and it is not so hard-pressed to change tack. But Reconciliation 2.0 seems a little less ridiculous than Reconciliation 1.0, suggesting it’s conceivable that 4.0 or 5.0, a couple years down the road, will be promising.

Palestinian Factions Reach Unity Deal [NYT]
Support for Palestinian Authority Erodes as Prices and Taxes Rise [NYT]
Fayyad Says Palestinians ‘Marginalized’ By Arab Spring [Bloomberg]
Israel Proposes West Bank Barrier as Border [AP/ABC News]
Earlier: Is Meshaal Stepping Down to Step Up?
On Reconciliation, ‘The Devil Is in the Details’

The vetoes brought the 15-member Security Council’s votes to 13 for, two against. Russia’s foreign minister insisted his country was motivated not to protect Assad but to uphold the essence of the Security Council, which “by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.” Thomas Friedman reports that Russia comes by that motive honestly, but out of selfishness: “There is a strong domestic dimension to Russian policy toward Syria,” he quotes a Russian expert. “If we allow the U.N. and the U.S. to put pressure on a regime—that is somewhat like ours—to cede power to the opposition, what kind of precedent could that create?”

The administration was firm in its condemnation of the regime—“Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity,” said Obama—and of Russia and China: “A couple of members of this council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant,” noted U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. But that is, for now, all talk. What’s next?

Not direct outside intervention. This is not another Libya. More likely, the situation will turn into something more closely resembling civil war, with several outside groups—including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who would love to pull Syria, currently ruled by Shiite Alawaites, into the Sunni camp, and also Turkey, which fears for regional stability and would like to project power more—funding and arming the opposition. Crucially, the United States will be implicitly approving of this. After all, from a geopolitical perspective this concerns Iran and its ability to go through Damascus to threaten U.S. allies Israel, Egypt, and Turkey; the tinderbox known as Lebanon; and even the precarious, U.S.-backed government of Iraq. The United States won’t be arming the Syrian rebels, much less providing them air cover, but it will be looking the other way or winking while other parties do so.

It would be something if the Syria situation brought countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey closer to the United States and even Israel. As I noted last week, realpolitik considerations led Israel to be among the first to openly hope for Assad’s downfall; the Jewish state has as much if not more interest in seeing Damascus pried away from Tehran’s grip as the other countries. Israeli Vice President Moshe Ya’alon observed that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to “developments … some of which could be positive as far as Israel is concerned, like a fissure in the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut-Hamas axis of evil.” (Indeed, accounts are that Hamas has already pulled away.) But don’t bet on the Syrian campfire leading to a Kumbaya moment.

And most of all, don’t expect Kumbaya in Syria. Assad is, as they say, not going down without a fight. On the contrary: As dissidence spreads even to regime strongholds like Aleppo and Damascus, and as the opposition begins to get better arms and more experience, signs are that the regime’s crackdown will likewise grow in intensity. It has Russia’s and China’s protection—why shouldn’t it feel like it can do what it wants?

At Least 200 Reported Killed in Syrian City of Homs [WP]
Russia, China Veto U.N. Action on Syria … and the Blame Game Begins [FP Turtle Bay]
Russia: Sort of, but Not Really [NYT]
Solution on Syria Remains Elusive for White House [NYT]
Syrian Unrest After a Failure of Diplomacy [NYT]

• Prime Minister Netanyahu will address the AIPAC conference next month in Washington, D.C. It is not yet known whether he’ll meet with President Obama, though chances are good. [JTA]

• While we don’t know whether Israel will attack Iran, it seems clear that all the chatter is not merely idle (and not merely intended to bluff). It is on the table in even the most private discussions. [NYT]

• New York police have upped security at prominent Jewish sites in Manhattan, such as synagogues and the Israeli consulate, for fears of Iran’s retaliating for scientist assassinations and other covert actions. [CBS NY/Vos Iz Neias?]

• The special “shomer Shabbos” Nevada caucus turned controversial when participants had to sign something about their religious observance and when Ron Paul supporters flooded it and won. (Mitt Romney won most of the state easily.) [NYT]

• The Egyptian gas pipeline. It was bombed. For the 12th time in the past year. [Arutz Sheva]

Congratulations to the New York Giants on their fourth Super Bowl win—all of which have come in the past 25 years. They beat the Patriots 21-17. An even bigger congratulations to those who bet the prop that the first score of the game would be a Giants safety at 60:1 odds or better.

It seems now the Israelis are signaling they may act and conduct a strike inside Iran at their nuclear sites, sooner than latter. Do they have your full support for that raid?
I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do. I think they, like us, believe that Iran has to stand down on its nuclear weapons program. And we have mobilized the international community in a way that is unprecedented, and they are feeling the pinch, they are feeling the pressure. But they have not taken the step that they need to diplomatically, which is to say, ‘We will pursue peaceful nuclear power, we will not pursue a nuclear weapon.’ Until they do, I think Israel, rightly, is going to be very concerned and we are as well.

Has Israel promised you that they will give you advanced warning to any such attack? Should they give you that warning?
You know, I won’t go into the details of our conversations. I will say we have closer military and intelligence consultation between our two countries than we ever have. And my number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel, and we are going to make sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this, hopefully diplomatically.

When you talk about the security of the United States, Iran has had a long time to contemplate how they might respond to such an attack. Do you fear they will wage attacks within the United States—on American soil?
We don’t see any evidence that they have those intentions or capabilities right now. And again: our goal would be to resolve this issue diplomatically—that would be preferable. We’re not going to take options off the table, though. Obviously, any kind of additional military activity inside the Gulf is disruptive and has a big effect on us: it could have a big effect on oil prices; we’ve still got troops in Afghanistan, which borders Iran; and so our prefered solution here is diplomatic—we’re going to keep pushing on that front. But we’re not going to take any options off the table, and I’ve been very clear that we’re going to do every thing we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.

Then they started talking about the economy.

• Roseanne Barr announced her candidacy for the Green Party ticket. The Green Party cautioned that she’d still have to be nominated at the July convention like anyone else. [Page Six]

• Ayatollah Khamanei, Iran’s supreme leader, made an unusually blunt threat of retaliation on Israel and the United States in the event of an attack. [NYT]

• Tel Aviv: Silicon Valley of Europe. [WSJ]

• And Canada wants to make itself the Israel of North America, high tech-wise. [Reuters]

• Tablet Magazine contributor Tevi Troy’s epic paean to Ed Koch. [City Journal]

• And catch Koch talking about Israel’s future (along with senior writer Liel Leibovitz and other luminaries) on Super Bowl Sunday in New York. [92Y Tribeca]

• Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center gets an Oscar vote. No, but you should totally continue to get angry when the wrong movies win Oscars. [NYT]

• Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is mulling a run for Congress in his Republican New Jersey district. Says Shmarya Rosenberg: “Now you can hate him for another reason.” [Failed Messiah]

• Benny Morris looks at Greece and Cyprus and why they are newly friendly to Israel. [The National Interest]

• Living up to the name, Diasporist columnist Irin Carmon snapped this shot in Guatemala City’s Plaza Israel. [@irincarmon]

• Marina Weisband: she’s hot, she’s German, she’s Jewish. [Heeb]

• Three Jewish Super Bowl snack recipes. [Kveller]

• Jews of Super Bowls past. [Joint Media Service/Jewish Journal]

Where were you four years ago?

• Shmuel Rosner notes that Jews aren’t trending toward the Republicans so much as away from the Democrats (and toward independent status). He also notes that in the context of this Pew poll, the 2011 results actually see an uptick in Jewish identification with the Democrats over the 2010 results. It’s still down since President Obama’s election, though.

• Jonathan Tobin has no proof for his contention that Israel is the prime reason that, since Obama’s election, Jews have disproportionately turned away from the Democratic Party … but I largely buy it. What else would it be? (How many lefty Jews disgusted by Obama’s various compromises, for example, would have identified as Democrats in the first place? Also, c’mon?) I also agree that this is important because Pennsylvania and Florida are going to be in play.

• Tobin also writes, “Liberal Jews remain far more afraid of conservative Christians than Hamas terrorists.” I suppose this is technically, semantically true, but I think there is probably a fairer way of putting it, hmm?

• If we saw Jews turn away from a sitting Democratic president, the operative word might not be “Democratic” but “sitting”: as Dan Klein reported in Tablet Magazine, since Nixon, and excepting George W. Bush, Jews have disproportionately turned against every elected president running for re-election.

• The 2011 poll had a Jewish sample size of 330 and a margin of error of 6.5 percent.

Jews Shift Toward GOP, Survey Claims [Forward]
Related: Do We Now Have Proof Jews Are Trending Republican? [Jewish Journal Rosner's Domain]
Obama’s Israel Problem Cause of Democrat Losses Among Jews [Commentary Contentions]
Sitting Duck [Tablet Magazine]

This week’s winner is Eli Spielman, who added the following insight to Matthew Hiltzik’s (Alec Baldwin-approved!) comparison of Jewishness to New York Jets fandom the following insight: “Being a Jets fan is like a microcosm of Jewish history: Decade upon decade of martyrdom punctuated only by a brilliantly game-planned upset in the late 1960s.”

Come to think of it, an eyepatch would have totally worked on Joe Namath.

Spielman gets a copy of Shimon Peres’ biography of David Ben-Gurion, the Weeb Ewbank (or perhaps Sonny Werblin) of the Six Day War.

Nyets
Ben-Gurion [Nextbook Press]

Planned Parenthood probably shouldn’t declare complete victory yet: it will be interesting to see how well new grant applications are fulfilled (and you can rest assured we will have an answer, as they will be watched closely). In another sense, though, Planned Parenthood had this major organization affirm its legitimacy; got people talking again about the vast panoply of services it provides for women’s health; and raised $650,000 (!!) in the 24 hours following Komen’s first announcement. And good on Hadassah for joining the chorus of Komen supporters expressing their concern and outrage—outrage that, given what a P.R. fiasco this has been for the breast cancer group, probably won’t immediately subside.

UPDATE: Hadassah just sent out a statement. It reads, in part:

Hadassah is proud to continue our longstanding role as an advocate for a woman’s right to choose and a strong supporter in the advancement of women’s health. There is no time to waste. Komen should never again allow this type of controversy to erode the integrity of its well-known and much-admired name in fundraising for breast cancer treatment research and awareness.

Hadassah applauds the millions of women who have united in a shared message to ensure that together, women will continue to receive much needed services and that our focus on women’s health will be continuously strengthened, never derailed again.

Earlier: How Will Pro-Choice Hadassah React to Komen?
Komen Pulls Planned Parenthood Funding

When? Tomorrow.

Who dropped out? Since Florida, nobody, although you could argue that a part of Mitt Romney dropped out by dying inside when Donald Trump endorsed him yesterday at—you knew this was coming—Trump Las Vegas Hotel on the Strip.

The remaining candidates: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum.

Our sentimental favorite: Fred Karger. Also, Red 19.

Percentage of state population that is Jewish: 2.8.

Where that ranks: Ninth out of 50.

Jewish issues? Not really, except that this is Gingrich backer Sheldon Adelson’s home state, and there has been much talk that a phone call he placed was responsible for the holding of a special caucus, which theoretically could be gamed, after sundown for observant Jews. He denies it; the special caucus is being held at the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus, but they’re this close to naming the town after him anyway.

Is this a further sign of the bad influence of money in politics, like his Super PAC donations? Sort of. Many have judged the special caucus a malign thing, as though religiously observant Jews should be declared ineligible, making the caucuses even more farcical than normal. That’s absurd; the special caucus is a good thing. But Adelson’s being able to engineer it himself (if he did) is bad. As the poet said: no one man should have all that power.

Percentage of state population that is Mormon: 6.47.

Where that ranks: Fourth (admit it, you thought it’d be second).

You see where I’m going with this? Yes, Romney’s going to win.

By how much? Probably 20 points at least. But since it’s caucuses, other contestants could pick up delegates by winning an individual caucus, which is why Rep. Ron Paul did not largely ignore Nevada: his goal is to accumulate as many delegates as possible heading into the Republican National Convention.

Number of delegates to the Republican National Convention: 28.

Which casinos are you going to hit? The Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand.

These are Terry Benedict’s places! Yes they are.

Think he’ll mind? More than somewhat.

What’s next? Maine’s caucuses will be held from tomorrow through a whole week. Caucuses!

Didn’t Perot do well in Maine? I bet Paul’s expected to do pretty well there. Yes and yes.

Closing thought:

There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada, made a fortune, your father too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GIs on the way to the West Coast. That kid’s name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn’t even a plaque or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself: this is the business we’ve chosen! I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

• The U.N. Security Council is getting closer to a resolution that would outline a plan for Syrian regime change, but any authorization of force, either now or in the future, seems unlikely. [FP Turtle Bay]

• Jackson Diehl outlines the vast repercussions the Syrian crisis is having across the region. [WP]

• Iran may have freed as many as five al-Qaida operatives from jails recently. [WSJ]

• Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the Maryland-based Torah-saving “Jewish Indiana Jones,” admitted in court that he is a fraud. [NYT]

• How wrong and stupid and offensive is this video of prominent pastor Eddie Long? A fellow Christian clergywoman helpfully counts the ways. [Huff Post]

• In a remarkable report, Robert Worth finds an official Iranian attempt to co-opt the Arab Spring failing in light of the leadership’s continued support for the Assad regime. [NYT]

• At Herzliya, former Congressman and Obama ally Robert Wexler questioned whether Israel should be building on West Bank land such that the amount of land swapped in a final deal is diminished. He is doing the Lord’s work, pun intended. [JPost]

• A French Jewish woman is embroiled in a custody battle with a Saudi prince. Wait, what? [JTA]

• Coffee with Shalom Auslander. [Capital]

• The Anti-Defamation League lambasted a local Italian politician for calling Roberto Benigni a “communist billionaire Jew,” which we back the group on. It added, “He is a man to be celebrated, not insulted.”… Yeah? [Ynet]

“I am what they call a Jew,” says The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz, “which means that I am neurotic and have a habit of falling into tailspins of anxiety.” It’s not just Jewish bloggers? Also, remember how this is the best plotline in television history?

Hadassah has long been a social and political advocate for a woman’s right to choose and a strong supporter in the advancement of women’s health, particularly regarding those issues involving breast health and the treatment of and search for a cure for breast cancer.

As a two-time winner in the battle against breast cancer myself, as a supporter of both Komen and Planned Parenthood, and as an advocate for reproductive freedom, I am disappointed that the controversy surrounding Komen’s decision to discontinue its modest funding of Planned Parenthood has become such a distraction that it could endanger our collective dedication to the important issues surrounding women’s health. There is no time to waste in our commitment to the fundamental issues of women’s health, breast cancer and a woman’s right to choose.

A spokesperson referred me to this as Hadassah’s statement on the matter. Left unsaid: Whom does Natan blame for “the controversy”—Komen, for pulling its funding, or Planned Parenthood, for providing abortions? One would assume the former, given Hadassah’s strong support for a “woman’s right to choose.” Which begs the follow-up: Will Hadassah, as a major ally and funder, request that Komen restore its Planned Parenthood funding, on threat of losing some of Hadassah’s? That would seem like the logical next step.

Earlier: Komen Pulls Planned Parenthood Funding
Hadassah: Start Annual Breast Exams at 40

It’s the Pats, folks. Sorry, Giants fans (and respect to the New Jersey Jewish News for recognizing what’s cover-worthy; and respect to Matthew Hiltzik, who makes a persuasive case for the Jewishness of the Pats’ archrival, the New York Jets). But we are swayed by three things.

• As I documented around this time last year, the American Football League was in many ways a fundamentally Jewish institution; the American Football Conference, which the Pats are representing, is the AFL’s descendant; and the Patriots were one of the eight original AFL franchises.

• Bob Kraft’s late wife, Myra, remembered on The Scroll by contributing editor Joan Nathan when she died this summer, has been the team’s guardian angel throughout the season. They have worn the patch with her initials, “MHK,” every game; they have brought a painting of her to Indianapolis.

• Your faithful blogger is a Washington Redskins fan and is not going to endorse the freakin’ Giants to win one more Super Bowl than their NFC East rivals (both have won three), especially since it was all of six weeks ago that he (your faithful blogger) saw Giants fans boo their own team as the Skins crushed them. Grrrrr.

Either way, enjoy Sunday night! The Super Bowl only comes once a year.

Related: The Other League [Tablet Magazine]
Remembering the Patriots’ First Lady [ESPN Boston]
Related: Nyets [Tablet Magazine]
Earlier: Check the Scoreboard
Remembering Myra Kraft

Robert Hegyes, a Sweathead on ‘Kotter,’ Dies at 60 [NYT]

Relatedly, Phil saw his shadow today. So, six more weeks of winter.

From the Times:

Dr. Niles Goldstein … said he finds Jewish resonance in the fact that Mr. Murray’s character is rewarded by being returned to earth to perform more mitzvahs—good deeds—rather than gaining a place in heaven, which is the Christian reward, or achieving nirvana, the Buddhist reward. …

”The movie tells us, as Judaism does, that the work doesn’t end until the world has been perfected,” Rabbi Goldstein said.

But wait. Michael Bronski, a film critic for The Forward who teaches a course in Jewish film history at Dartmouth, said he sees strong elements of not only Jewish but also Christian theology. ”The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays,” he said, adding: ”And when I say that the groundhog is Jesus, I say that with great respect.”

Groundhog Almighty [NYT]
Earlier: Happy Groundhog Day! (get it??)

So, what’s the point of a toothless resolution? “The Arab-Western strategy at the U.N. makes a great deal of sense if Assad’s days are truly numbered, and the decisive pressure to remove him will come from the inside,” argues Marc Lynch in an excellent analysis. (He writes as one who opposes any military action, even a no-fly zone, on the merits.) “An international consensus crystallized in a Security Council resolution would limit the regime’s options and send a clear signal to Syrians that their future does not lie with the status quo,” he adds. “The political transition plan may not unfold as outlined on paper, but the constant references to toleration and inclusion can reassure frightened elites and minorities that they have a place in post-Assad Syria.” And to Assad, it would be a threat of what might come next.

Why wouldn’t Russia relent? Especially given the thousands of Syrian soldiers who have already defected and much chatter from the West (some of it no doubt ginned up precisely to make the regime’s end seem inevitable, but still) that Assad is on his way out? The answer is, Russia probably will. Credit also Secretary Clinton’s strong speech Tuesday and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s admonition that the Security Council form a consensus. Even credit the Turkish president, who said it’s over for onetime ally Assad. Their words will make it so.

And really, credit Israel. They wanted this before just about everyone. When the unrest first started in Syria last spring, everyone assumed Israel would prefer the stability of Assad—that phrase about “the devil we know” was tossed around a lot, including by me. Ambassador Michael Oren answered that way of thinking by June: “Allied with Iran, Mr. Assad has helped supply 55,000 rockets to Hezbollah and 10,000 to Hamas, very likely established a clandestine nuclear arms program and profoundly destabilized the region,” Oren wrote. “The violence he has unleashed on his own people demonstrating for freedoms confirms Israel’s fears that the devil we know in Syria is worse than the devil we don’t.” No doubt Israel has been moved in large part by the near-certainty that an Assad-less Syria would greatly hurt Iran and its ability to project power throughout the region that threatens Israel, chiefly by funding and shipping arms to Hezbollah and Hamas (indeed, Hamas has already ditched Damascus and may be splitting with Tehran). For Israel, pragmatism may have been the better part of virtue. But they were still virtuous before the rest of the world (minus Russia and a few other holdouts) came around: a statement, in its way—you can know someone by his enemies—about what Israel stands for in the region and the international community.

Diplomats at U.N. Haggle With Russia Toward a Compromise on Syria [NYT]
The Security Council Takes on Syria [FP Mideast Channel]
Endgame in Syria [WP PostPartisan]
Israel Prefers The End of the Assad Regime to Its Continuance [WSJ]
As Syria Wobbles Under Pressure, Iran Feels the Weight of An Alliance [NYT]

• International nuclear inspectors, just returned, will visit Iran again in three weeks. If nothing else, it’s a sign that both sides want to be seen as cooperating. [NYT]

• With the last round not yet implemented, the Senate is already working on new financial sanctions against Iran that would target individual leaders, including President Ahmadinejad. [FP The Cable]

• Eight rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel; they hurt no one. They may have been timed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s visit to the region, including Gaza. [Israel HaYom]

• At the Herzliya Conference, Israeli central banker Stanley Fischer did not go easy on Israel. Among other things, he said the Haredim, many of whom deliberately subsist on generous government subsidies, have to start working. [Haaretz]

• “In the world of mohels … Mr. Sherman has become a kind of bold-faced name.” [NYT City Room]

• Circumcisions helps prevent the spread of HIV and are now, thanks to an Israeli company, as easily done and minimally painful as ever. [NYT]

• Contributing editor Jeff Goldberg adds a bit more room to the new one he tore for John J. Mearsheimer a few years ago. [Atlantic Goldblog]

• An OECD study pegs Israel the second most-educated country in the world (congratulations Canada, I guess). [Haaretz]

• Submit your embarrassing bat mitzvah photos to Gawker. Bar mitzvah photos are presumably banned to give the ladies a chance to win. [Gawker]

• The lost and new Jews of … Crown Heights! [NYT]

If you read Hebrew, you’ll recognize that this is Haaretz discussing Liel Leibovitz’s Scroll post yesterday.

Though Limbaugh was, in more than one sense, the book’s largest target, I thought I’d reprint some of the best lines about Gingrich. And yes, I asked the senator’s office for comment; and no, they didn’t get back to me. Guess he’s gone all Beltway.

• “I think Newt’s dirty little secret is that he smoked dope and watched The Jetsons.”

• “Newt Gingrich’s claims that he was leading a ‘revolution’ were interpreted not as the rantings of a delusional megalomaniac but as a reasonable blueprint for the nation’s future.”

• Gingrich, we learn, had a fundraiser who was an “enigmatic, Greek-born, Cambridge-educated socialite; conservative commentator” named Arianna Huffington.

• Franken ponders the notorious circumstances of Gingrich’s first divorce:

Maybe it went like this:

Jackie calls Newt at home just before she goes into surgery. “Newt, I’m more certain than ever that I want a divorce.”

“But, honey, you’re about to undergo cancer surgery! You don’t know what you’re saying!”

“Newt, please. When you bring the girls today, I also want you to bring a legal pad with terms for a divorce.”

“For godsakes! You’re having cancer surgery!”

“Would you stop it?! This is what I want. What I don’t want is for you to blame yourself. You’re too good a person for that.”

It could have been like that. And to assume otherwise would be unfair.

Of course, what we do know is that after the divorce, he was late with his alimony payments, and she had to take him to court twice to provide adequate support for her and the girls and that her church took up a collection to help them get by. That we do know.

• “Newt is nothing if not a man of ideas: We should give poor kids laptops. We should put poor kids in orphanages. We should appoint militia-loving Idaho representative Helen Chenoweth to a gun control task force.”

• “I’ve heard pundits say that minorities are comfortable with Jack Kemp because he’s a former NFL quarterback*. As Newt Gingrich once said admiringly, ‘Jack Kemp has probably showered with more blacks than most Republicans have shaken hands with.’” (Franken proceeds to list Politicians Who Have Showered With Blacks, including Rep. J.C. Watts, who, a footnote notes, “Is himself black.”)

*While Kemp achieved the bulk of his fame in the American Football League, he did begin his career in the NFL.

• Franken quotes Gingrich describing the problems with female combat troops: “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.” Gingrich also says, “Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”

Writes Franken:

Two images come to mind. The first is of the grasslands of Africa. During the Neolithic Period. Rush, Newt, and Bill Bennett, all 825 pounds of them, are trying to run down a giraffe. The giraffe is thinking, “No problem here.”

The second image is of Newt, about fifteen years ago, explaining to his thirteen-year-old daughter that she just got her first “infection.”

• “Then Dennis Hopper walked up. ‘You, sir, are a great man. You are doing great things.’ He wasn’t talking to me. Newt told Hopper how brilliant his performance was in Blue Velvet. How he loved Hopper’s intensity. I started to feel like I was in Blue Velvet.”

• Franken posits six jokes and rates whether they are fair or unfair. Here’s one:

“I’d like a Gingrich-Gramm ticket. That way the president could write the pornography and the vice president could produce it.”

Fair or unfair? “Fair. The first, uncensored version of Gingrich’s novel 1945 made me hot. I gave it a six on the peter-meter. Gramm invested $7,500 in a soft-core porn movie.”

• Remembering seeing Gingrich speak, Franken testifies: “And as I watched him on the stage, my hands were clenched in fists of rage. As Don McLean might say, assuming he hates Newt Gingrich as much as he hated Mick Jagger.”

• Perhaps best of all, Franken finds Newt arguing that his Medicare plan would increase Medicare by using figures not adjusted for inflation. That may not sound like very much to you, but to wonks I can assure you that means a great deal.

As Jill Lepore reported recently, Planned Parenthood actually began much the same way Komen did. Though its founder, Margaret Sanger, was not Jewish, its original receptionist was fluent in Yiddish and it opened on the Lower East Side to serve poor Italian and Jewish women. Its first handbills were translated into Italian and Yiddish; its first landlord was named Rabinowitz, and he gave them a discount because he liked what they did. Later, in the 1960s, Planned Parenthood grew thanks to the efforts of Jewish president Alan F. Guttmacher.

But here’s the difference: those who most need Komen are represented by the people who run Komen; those who most need Planned Parenthood—poor women, including the African-Americans whom Guttmacher was reaching out to—are not. Despite depending on the donations of the wealthy (and government funding), Planned Parenthood altruistically goes beyond its natural constituency. Komen, with this decision, appears not to be, and in fact seems increasingly concerned with rich women, who might be able to afford their own care. “Meet Women Whose Lives Have Been Saved By Early Breast Cancer Screenings,” reads Planned Parenthood’s homepage. There may be fewer to meet in the future because of this decision.

AP Exclusive: Amid Abortion Debate, Komen Cancer Charity Halting Grants to Planned Parenthood [AP/WP]
Related: Birthright [The New Yorker]
Earlier: Pink Is Jewish

But why talk about this stuff when we can talk about the Jews?!

Polling pundit extraordinaire Nate Silver noted early on last evening that Jewish turnout was low last night in comparison to the primary four years ago: in 2008, three percent of GOP primary voters identified as Jewish; last night, only one percent did. This, Silver concluded, “might mean that Jewish Republican voters in the state are not terribly enthusiastic about this group of candidates.” The line was pondered. On Twitter, the battle was joined. (Pssst, Gal: don’t engage him! He’s very good!) At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin responded. The explanation? The Rudy phenomenon: “the man who drove that mini-surge in Jewish Republican voters was Rudy Giuliani,” argued Tobin. “Though he flopped in the Florida primary four years ago, the former mayor of New York was a big favorite of the Jewish and pro-Israel community.”

I don’t know if that carries water. We don’t know for sure who won Florida’s Republican Jewish vote, either last night or in 2008—the overall Jewish franchise was unfortunately not large enough for exit pollsters to glean meaningful data from it. (Maybe the best we can do is to look at the extremely Jewish counties of Palm Beach and Broward, where Giuliani got 19 and 17 percent of the vote, besting only slightly his 15 percent statewide figure; he did put up a slightly more impressive 26 percent in Jewish-but-also-idiosyncratic Miami-Dade.) Even granting a Giuliani Bump, Tobin is suggesting that Giuliani was single-handedly able to increase the percentage of the Jewish vote—by a factor of three!—in an electorate roughly the same size as last night’s (about 1.9 million voted in the 2008 primary; it looks like about 1.75 million voted in last night’s). That seems pretty far-fetched to me, especially when you remember that Florida’s is a closed primary, open only to registered Republicans, so Giuliani could not have drawn Democratic and independent Jews in to vote for him (and when you remember, as Shmuel Rosner reminds us, that Sen. Joe Lieberman had endorsed John McCain). It’s roughly as plausible to suggest that Jewish turnout was depressed because Jews were going to go for Romney until they heard a disembodied voice on the phone tell them the former Massachusetts governor hates kosher-keeping Holocaust survivors. It didn’t play no role, it’s not impossible it played a huge role, and nobody can prove it either way. But it’s very unlikely.

The Forward’s Josh Nathan-Kazis tentatively concurred with Silver’s suggestion: “Fewer Jewish voters in the primary,” he wrote, “could correlate to a lack of enthusiasm among Jews for the Republican field.” Unlike the rest of us, Josh was down there reporting on this, so I’m more inclined to listen to him. But I’m still not going to put too much stock into the three-versus-one-percent dynamic. Most likely, it’s a combination of lack of enthusiasm among Jews, statistical noise, and a generally less excited Republican primary electorate (and one where those most excited—in the Tea Party—tend not to be Jewish).

But this does leave an open question regarding Tobin’s argument. He contends that it is possible to acknowledge that the Jewish vote changed while explaining it not by reference to larger trends or specifically Jewish or Israel-related policies or platforms or records, but, rather, to the arbitrary inflation (“mini-surge”) caused by an anomaly (in this case, the unusual presence of a moderate, ethnic, strong-on-Israel former New York City mayor from Brooklyn on the 2008 Republican ticket). I completely agree. In fact, I and many others have long suggested that while it’s certainly possible that in November President Obama will see a drop in Jewish support, that drop needs to be more than a couple points to be significant because the 78 percent of the Jewish vote he captured in 2008—higher than John Kerry’s 74 percent in 2004—was anomalously high due to the decisive nature of Obama’s victory generally as well as Jews’ “hatred” for a certain member of the Republican ticket. Given Tobin’s sensible sympathy to such external whims’ influence on voting figures, I assume that he will take all of this into account when he analyzes the returns in November. I won’t say one percent is small; he shouldn’t say 74 percent is.

Romney Wins Big in Florida Primary, Regaining Momentum [NYT]
Jewish Turnout Low in Florida [NYT FiveThirtyEight]
Low Jewish Turnout in Florida Doesn’t Help Obama in November [Commentary Contentions]
Florida Exit Polls Suggest Fewer Jews Vote GOP [Forward]

• The emergent opposition claims President Assad no longer controls half of Syria. [Haaretz]

• Guess who the Syria issue’s really also about? Iran. [NYT]

• Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Gaza and Hamas, is visiting Tehran. Hamas and Iran have been on the outs recently due to Hamas’ abandonment of the Assad regime. [JTA]

• As predicted, Prime Minister Netanyhau cleaned up in the Likud primaries. [Ynet]

• The Orthodox Jewish Press responds to threats it has received over an op-ed it recently published by someone who identified as Orthodox and homosexual. [Jewish Press/Failed Messiah]

• A State Department spokesperson criticized an Israeli announcement of new West Bank settlement-building. [Haaretz]

• The Mossad head has recently had secret meetings with top U.S. officials on Iran. It’s not clear if we are supposed to know this (though it’s not exactly shocking, either). [Haaretz]

• The story of Bernie Fine, the former Syracuse assistant basketball coach, takes a turn for the even-more-tawdry. [ESPN]

• Israel sent the Muslim Brotherhood a note of cautious congratulations on its success in Egypt’s parliamentary elections. [Arutz Sheva]

• Jewcy’s Jason Diamond reviews Ben Marcus’s new, super-Jewy novel, The Flame Alphabet. [NPR]

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose The Law in These Parts, a documentary about the West Bank legal system, just won the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in Documentary, made a short “Op-Doc” for the Times.

• Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of The Eichmann Trial, sees a future where the survivors have passed on and the burden of telling their stories will fall ever more onto educators.

• Erica Brown explains that Judaism demands constant self-examination and -reinvention—even when it comes to the small stuff.

• Sara Y. Aharon, a descendant of Jews from the Afghan city of Heart, tells of the stories that the Afghan Jewish community, which no longer exists, told itself about its continued survival.

• Contributing editor Eddy Portnoy exhumes Abraham Hochman, psychic of the Lower East Side.

• An Orthodox young man imagines the future in which he, unlike most of the other contributors, will play a starring role.

Text/Context January 2012 [The Jewish Week]

The administration has already begun to respond via Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who has offered Israel a balm with the words, “If they proceed and we get intelligence that they’re proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it,” along with the pushback that the U.S. believes Iran is at least a year away from developing a nuclear weapon (and would then require an additional year or two to make it deliverable); that it hasn’t necessarily decided whether to build one; and the caution
that the U.S. doesn’t have bombs strong enough to fully stop the program. It’s disputed whether or not this is actually true; what isn’t disputed is that the administration wants Israel and the world to think of an attack as an extremely undesirable (albeit not off-the-table) option, and this helps that.

For now, it’s sabotage and sanctions, including an oil embargo that the European Union and even Turkey have agreed to begin implementing. The big prize is China: after much U.S. and Saudi diplomacy earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting Beijing this week to urge them to import less Iranian crude. China seems somewhat game, although last week it criticized the embargo.

It’s been said before (including by contributing editor Jeff Goldberg earlier this month), but now, after Iran has been squeezed but before the covert warfare has gotten completely out of hand, is the time to try to strike a deal. “[President Obama] doesn’t have to withdraw any sanctions or any ‘red lines,’” argues Leslie Gelb. “Just cut the usual diplomatic and political baloney, and try. With so much pressure now being applied on Iran, it might work. In the midst of a barrage of economic and military pressures, it is not a sign of weakness or lack of resolve to offer peace. It is classic negotiating from strength.” The threats, the sanctions, the embargos, the assassinations, the sabotage: here, these become leverage, things you can pull back in exchange for concessions. Israel’s and the West’s seriousness of purpose make substantive negotiations more, not less, likely.

Will Israel Attack Iran? [Yahoo! The Envoy]
Israel Senses Bluffing in Iran’s Threats of Retaliation [NYT]
‘Germany To Pressure China Over Iran Oil Imports’ [Reuters/JPost]
How President Obama Should Handle Iran [The Daily Beast]
Earlier: Iran Foes Try to Coax China

Their names: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum.

Percentage of state population that is Jewish: 3.4.

Where that ranks: Fifth out of 50. (Can you guess the top four? Answer after the jump.)

Jewish issues? Not hugely, and there isn’t much disagreement: At the most recent debate, Romney gave his Israel spiel, and Gingrich responded, “Gov. Romney is exactly right.” Of course, there is Romney’s Great Kosher Food Nursing Home Scandal, which actually is neither great nor scandalous nor Romney’s.

Who’s going to win? Mitt Romney, almost certainly.

Does it matter? Yes. Newt needs this one, bad.

Open or closed primary? Closed.

So, your Democratic grandmother isn’t going to accidentally vote for Ron Paul? No butterfly-ballot concerns.

Proportional or winner-take-all? Winner-take-all. That’s why Santorum long ago gave up and Paul didn’t waste much time (since he is all about accumulating delegates over the long haul).

Number of delegates to the Republican National Convention: 50.

Number of delegates to the Republican National Convention it would have if it hadn’t moved up its primary against party rules: 100.

Democracy! Sigh.

(The Democratic Party did the exact same thing, right? Yes. They’re both hypocrites.)

What’s next? Nevada, February.

So, more Jews! Yup.

Percentage-wise, the leaders are New York (8.4), New Jersey (5.7), Massachusetts (4.2), and the great state of Maryland (4.1).

• Diplomats gathered at the U.N. Security Council were treated to reports of renewed fighting, verging on outright civil war. [NYT]

• The leader of Jorg Haider’s old far-right party in Austria called his compatriots “the new Jews” because they, too, are persecuted. Some did not take kindly to the comparison. [DPA/Haaretz]

• Roger Cohen has an excellent report from Lithuania on “Holocaust obfuscation” and “the suffering Olympics” between the Jews (under the Nazis) and the Lithuanians (under the Russians) [NYT]

• Likud elections are today. Prime Minister Netanyahu will win re-election as leader handily, but the religious right portion of the party is nonetheless increasing ominously. [Haaretz]

• The late music mogul Alan Meltzer left substantial sums to his chaffeur and doorman. But you really just have to read the article. [NY Post]

• Check out the Amazon Kindles Singles best-seller list. You might notice that at number two—above titles from Stephen King and Dean Koontz—is Dara Horn’s “The Rescuer” for Tablet Magazine. [Amazon Kindle Singles]

• A Palestinian television show aired an interview with the Fogel family murderer, who called him a “hero.” [Haaretz]

• A further Jewish angle to Downton Abbey! And this in addition to the news that next season we will meet the ostensibly Jewish Lady Grantham’s mother, and she will be played by Shirley MacLaine. [Jewlicious]

• A Republican congressman from Staten Island is in hot water for raising money with the help of a certain sketchy Israeli rabbi. Do I need to tell you who that is? [NYT]

• Howard Kurtz profiles DWS. [Jewcy/Newsweek]

Life moves pretty fast …

“Because he’s honest, because he’s charitable, because he’s pro-Israel,” Voight replied when I asked him today why he had endorsed Romney. “He’s a great guy, a great man. A very religious man, a very righteous man, and he has a passion for Israel. Not that other candidates don’t—I think they’re very similar on Israel, thank God.”

(Voight’s friend Huckbabee was a chief rival of Romney’s in 2008, the Christian conservative for those who didn’t want a Mormon candidate. But Voight isn’t a Southern evangelical; he’s a New York Catholic.)

“He’s a friend of Benjamin Netanyahu, and that speaks well, because I think Benjamin Netanyahu is a great man,” Voight added. “I think it would be a big relief for all Israelis who have any understanding of present politics to have a President Romney.”

Jon Voight Endorses Mitt Romney [Politico]
Related: Cowboy [Tablet Magazine]

-Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal at Davos (h/t Journal of a Journalist).

Lauren Potter, Yoav Roth [NYT]

The Times highlights the prevalence of the number 42 in the film—Danny, Jack and Wendy’s son, wears a t-shirt with the number on it; Wendy takes 42 swings of her baseball bat at Jack—and notes that since the early ‘70s, that number was seen as an ominous metonym for the Final Solution, which was launched in 1942. (The number was prominent in the ‘70s also as the answer to Douglas Adams’ question.) But there’s more.

For example: Jack’s typewriter. Cocks explained to me that it’s an Adler Eagle typewriter—“a German machine, pictured almost to make it a character, a clear representation of the bureaucratic killing machine.” (It’s also the model typewriter Kubrick himself used.) When Jack awakes from a dream in which he has killed his wife and his son, he is slumped over his desk, next to his typewriter, which has changed color. It is now light blue: a color that, according to Cocks, invariably signifies “a system of cold, mighty hierarchical power” in Kubrick’s films. And of course he is in the Overlook Hotel’s magnificent, gargantuan main room: and, as Cocks put it, “Big institutions in big rooms in big buildings in Kubrick movies almost always means malevolent power.”

Then there is the music. Two pieces recur repeatedly: Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Penderecki’s The Awakening of Jacob. The fiercely anti-Nazi Hungarian Bartók’s piece was written in 1936, and Kubrick specifically uses the section of it known as “The Night Music.” “That music suggests trepidation about Nazism,” Cocks said. “[Kubrick] chose it because it’s creepy, but it can’t escape its own associations.” Penderecki was a Pole who lived through the Shoah and said all of his music was freighted with its horror; The Awakening of Jacob, which plays while blood rushes from the elevators—“as good a visual metonym for the horror of the 20th century that has ever been filmed,” as Cocks put it in the Times—is also known as the “Auschwitz Oratorio” for the time when it was played at the former camp at a ceremony in the 1960s.

Finally, one must consider the dream-like status of the entire film and Freudian notions of repression, which, particularly via Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, made a huge impression on Kubrick. Citing the evidence that the film also, perhaps even more directly, addresses the genocide of Native Americans (the Overlook is built on a Native American burial ground), and noting that the film’s one true victim is African-American, Cocks notes the theme of “white males doing violence to people who aren’t white males.” Dig down further, beyond the horrors done to African-Americans and Native Americans, and you find the most repressed (and therefore, under Bettelheim, most dangerous) urge: “the most appalling genocide in human history, that Kubrick witnessed, at some remove, as a child.”

If Kubrick has a singular obsession in his films, Cocks said, it is the breakdown of rational systems (think of the neat symmetry of Mutually Assured Destruction, so mercilessly and bleakly parodied in Dr. Strangelove; or think, even, of the mutually enforced yet fragile structure of marriage as dissected in Eyes Wide Shut). Kubrick was fascinated by Raul Hilberg’s 1961 book The Destruction of the European Jews, and once said that the subject he most wanted to make a movie about was the Holocaust, but feared, “that he couldn’t approach that subject directly,” in Cocks’ words. “I think he saw the Final Solution in the context of rational systems breaking down,” Cocks argued. “Here’s a rational system that worked exactly how it was supposed to.”

“Of course I could be completely wrong about this,” Cocks adds. “But I don’t think so.”

Cracking the Code in ‘Heeere’s Johnny!’ [NYT]

It’s important to understand that the enticing prospect of anointing an outsider surely played some roll in Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s decision to very publicly donate $10 million to a pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC this month, thereby almost single-handedly materially and politically keeping Gingrich in the race for the Republican nomination. Frontrunner Mitt Romney’s campaign and his Super PACs have outspent Gingrich’s in Florida, whose primary is tomorrow, four to one. So it’s just like your bracket. If you give money to Romney, you’ve probably picked the winner, but you’re just another drop in the bucket—he doesn’t owe you particularly much. Give to Gingrich, you’ve probably picked the loser; but if he wins, he owes you. In this case: what?

“People who know him,” the New York Times reported yesterday of Adelson, the multibillionare casino magnate, “say his affinity for Mr. Gingrich stems from a devotion to Israel as well as loyalty to a friend. A fervent Zionist who opposes any territorial compromise to make way for a Palestinian state, Mr. Adelson has long been enamored of Mr. Gingrich’s full-throated defense of Israel.” (The definitive take on Adelson remains Connie Bruck’s 2008 profile. Incidentally, the definitive take on Gingrich is probably her 1996 profile.) It is true that as early as 1995 Gingrich was pushing for things like the law (now waived by three successive presidents) that would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But it’s not like Romney is a dove on Israel (“Governor Romney is exactly right,” Gingrich said at Thursday night’s debate after the frontrunner spoke about Israel). And Wayne Barrett has argued, persuasively, that Gingrich was actually well to Adelson’s left on Israel at various points over the last decade—among other things, he went from acknowledging that Palestinian nationhood does indeed exist to, notoriously, denying its existence last month, a line quickly echoed by Adelson himself. (Never mind that AIPAC and, at least, publicly, the Netanyahu government are to Adelson’s left in their willingness to entertain the notion of negotiating with Palestinian leadership.) It seems that Gingrich has campaigned, and promised to govern, in ways designed to land him Adelson’s money. In the post-Citizens United world of unchecked giving to ostensibly unaffiliated but strikingly on-message Super PACs, this is incredibly important.

Frequently, this blog takes stories that are seemingly not Jewish, grabs the tiny strand that is Jewish, pulls real hard, and tries to argue that the whole story is, in fact, in some suggestive or implicit or even metaphorical way, Jewish. The Adelson-Gingrich story is the opposite: it seems very Jewish (or at least Israel-related), but it really isn’t. Gingrich is almost certainly not going to be the nominee; Romney is likely to crush Gingrich by double digits tomorrow in Florida, the first state in the Republican primaries with a voting population remotely resembling the country’s (and the first, it should be said, with lots of Jews), and go on to win the nomination. The chief danger heralded by the Adelson-Gingrich relationship aren’t the particulars of Adelson’s politics. It is the prospect of an individual being willing, able, and legally permitted to fund an entire campaign and essentially to purchase an elected office. Adelson isn’t breaking any laws; you can even argue that in disclosing these donations—the disclosures are part of the point, they served a political purpose for Gingrich, but still—he is being more honest than many of Romney’s big donors. I’ll even grant that this sort of power can be used for good: Adelson apparently exerted his influence to ensure that observant Jews can vote in the Nevada caucuses Saturday. Doesn’t matter. The system stinks.

Adelson failed, this time. Will he next time? Will someone else? It isn’t a question of being good or bad for the Jews. It’s bad for practically everybody.

The Man Behind Gingrich’s Money [NYT]
Is Gingrich’s Hard Line on Palestine Paid For By Sheldon Adelson? [The Daily Beast]
Related: The Brass Ring [The New Yorker]
Earlier: Backed By ‘Shelly,’ Newt Takes S.C.

• Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged that it would take Iran about a year to actually develop a nuclear weapon—if it decided to. That decision, he added, is the United States’ red line. [Haaretz]

• Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, having effectively abandoned Damascus, visited King Abdullah II in Amman, in a sign of reconciliation between estranged allies who both have reasons to be friends (but not too good friends) again. [NYT]

• The chatter in Israel is of early elections. The thinking is that Prime Minister Netanyahu will call them while his popularity is high and before the U.S. elections. [LAT]

• Russia is, like, absurdly good to the Assad regime. [NYT]

• An Israeli documentary about the legal system in the West Bank won the prize for best documentary at Sundance. [Haaretz]

• The top-ranking U.S. general called a military strike on Iran “premature.” [National Journal]

• Peter Beinart shows that the way to understand the Jewish vote is the same way to understand the vote of other religions: look at levels of observance. [The Daily Beast]

• There’s nothing Mel Gibson doesn’t deserve, but the southern California synagogue trying to shake him down for being an anti-Semite is gross. And as if shame would work on this guy! [TMZ]

• The Republican Jewish Coalition’s Matthew Brooks argues that last night’s debate showcased why Jewish voters may flock to the Republican nominee due to his staunch support for Israel. [RJC]

• James Fallows found the same exchange extremely troubling. [Atlantic]

• As Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney nixed state funding for kosher meals at nursing homes. What won’t he do?? [NY Post]

• H&H’s obituary is officially written. [WSJ]

• “It’s the case of the missing mezuzahs.” [NY Post]

• At Jewish Theological Seminary, Justice Stephen Breyer presented a jurisprudence not unlike the Conservative movement’s driving philosophy. [JustASC]

• Evan Osnos updates us on Ai Weiwei’s status. [New Yorker News Desk]

• Leave your thank you to departing Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. [DNC]

• First in war, first in peace, last in good Jewish delis: the tragedy of D.C. (We miss you, Krupin’s!) [City Paper]

Birthright LOL.

Israeli parody of Taglit-Birthright Propaganda Trips from Eretz Nehederet on Vimeo.

Sounding Off [Tablet Magazine]

U.S. Reps Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Mike Capuano (D-Mass) announced today that they have placed a friendly wager on the Super Bowl, as their respective hometown teams, the New York Giants and New England Patriots, get set to square off in next month’s game.

The two lawmakers are wagering meals from premier eateries in New York and Massachusetts: Ackerman putting up matzo ball soup and a kosher corned beef on club from Ben’s Best Deli in Rego Park, Queens in New York while Capuano is wagering clam chowder and clam rolls from Legal Seafoods, a Massachusetts-based seafood restaurant.

“As Democrats, Congressman Capuano and I agree on the vast majority of issues but the outcome of the Super Bowl is clearly not one of them,” quipped Ackerman. “The Giants are going to go all the way, and I look forward to feasting on delicious Massachusetts seafood while savoring Big Blue’s victory. Go Giants!”

“I have no doubt that New England’s beloved Patriots will bring the Lombardi trophy back to Massachusetts when they prevail in the Super Bowl,” stated Capuano. “The Patriots have shown grit and determination all season, qualities that will carry them to victory. I am looking forward to enjoying that deli feast as New England celebrates our 4th Super Bowl win in 10 years!”

Shouldn’t the bet be that the winner gets to eat his own cuisine? And couldn’t Rep. Capuano find a non-chain? But still. A telling contrast. We’ll make our pick next week.

Earlier: An All-Tablet Super Bowl

This week’s winner is Leor Blumenthal, who was prompted by Liel Leibovitz’s “Arbiter” on the Star Wars movies to mount an intricate exegesis on the most controversial scene in them all: the meeting between Han Solo and Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina (original, new edition). Blumenthal argues:

It is interesting that Liel raises the “Han shot first” ruckus without mentioning that al pi Halakha what Han did was absolutely moral. Greedo came to collect a debt. Han, a shomer sakhar in Jabba’s employ, was forced to jettison the cargo he was delivering for Jabba. Han insists to Greedo that he doesn’t have the cash to pay Jabba the debt, but will soon (once he gets back from ferrying the old man, boy and two droids to Alderaan). Greedo instead insists that he has the right to seize Han’s ship. When Han refuses (“Over my dead body!”) Greedo threatens to kill Han. At this point Greedo is a rodef, and even if he hasn’t pulled the trigger on his blaster pistol, the fact that he IS pointing one at Han, entitles Han to kill Greedo to save his life. But that is not good enough for the Lucas of 1997. :(

(Italics and links are mine; emoticon is his.)

This may not be the single best justification for Han shot first, but it’s certainly the most theological. Blumenthal gets a copy of Elie Wiesel’s Rashi, because the great Talmudist would have appreciated this argument.

Monomaniacal [Tablet Magazine]
Rashi [Nextbook Press]

Abileah is a co-director of CODEPINK Women for Peace, one of dozens of left-wing groups endorsing Occupy AIPAC, which also includes Just Foreign Policy, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim Student Union at UC-Irvine (much in the news), U.S. Boat to Gaza, U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and even The Nation. (A recent addition, the magazine has confirmed it is co-sponsoring the conference, though its involvement is limited to promoting it). “The mission,” Abileah told me, echoing the group’s website, “is to expose AIPAC as a lobby not representing the best interests for the American people, putting the Israeli government’s agenda before most Americans—a lobby that is in opposition to what the 99 percent want. To show that they’re pushing for military aid to Israel when we need cuts to our military budget given the austerity. And to show it’s pushing for war with Iran, and we absolutely can’t afford another war in this country.”

It’s not a new argument—you might call it the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis (the authors spoke at last year’s gathering). But it’s clearly gained resonance (along with that 99 percent rhetoric) from Occupy Wall Street. “We did something similar last year, and we felt this year there was a lot of momentum to expose lobbyists,” Abileah said. In an email, she clarified: “Occupy is focusing on ending corporate personhood, economic justice, and fair/real democracy where corporate and one percent cash doesn’t drive politics, election, and legislation; AIPAC is a natural target within those demands/issues as a huge K Street lobby with a stranglehold on Congress.” (“A typical example of a one percenter,” she noted, “is Sheldon Adelson.”) She also cited Kalle Lasn, the editor of Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that put out the initial call for an occupation in Manhattan’s Financial District, and who told the left-wing blog Mondoweiss, “I’m hoping that a lot of people of like mind from this Occupy movement will move into this area, and we will be as aggressive as AIPAC, as aggressive as some of these neocons have been, and fighting back against them. What I’m saying is, we need a hashtag, #occupytheneocons, we need a hashtag, #occupyAIPAC.”

Here is one area where folks like me have a problem. Because, as Michael C. Moynihan reported in Tablet Magazine, Lasn’s magazine has a long history of trafficking in conspiracy theories of Israeli perfidy and outsize Jewish power. It pains me that I don’t have a great rebuttal right now to Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin’s claim that “The occupiers and the Israel-haters are natural allies” (although he is incorrect to make Occupy AIPAC synonymous with BDS—according to Abileah, not all endorsers advocate boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel). But I don’t.

Which is not to say Abileah would classify herself as an “Israel-hater.” And, as you could probably guess, most of Occupy AIPAC’s organizers are Jewish. Abileah grew up in a Reform community in the Bay Area, and while the Iraq War drove her into anti-war activism, it wasn’t until Operation Cast Lead, three years ago, she said, that she became passionate about the Palestinian cause.

So is this a legitimate harnessing of the Occupy cause? “Having a movement for justice for some people and not others seems absurd,” argued Abileah. “Occupy was inspired by the Arab Spring. We need global solidarity with the 99 percent.” Perhaps this is a damning indictment of those like me, who want to shout Occupy’s economic message from the rooftops but strongly back away from criticisms of Israel and AIPAC that unfairly single them out.

Or perhaps this is a damning indictment of the Occupy movement itself.

Related: Busted [Tablet Magazine]
‘It’s Time To Stop the Bully’ [Mondoweiss]
Occupy AIPAC Next Step for Leftist Group [Commentary Contentions]
Earlier: The Pro-Palestinian OWS Offshoot
The Problem With OWS’ Palestine Association

• At a debate last night in Florida, the Republican frontrunners laid into President Obama’s dealings with Israel. Mitt Romney reiterated the “threw Israel under the bus” line from the 1967 borders speech last May. [JPost]

• Sheldon Adelson, who along with his wife has now given $10 million to a pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC, denies (through an aide) that he is trying to buy off the presidency. [NBC]

• Even as he sounded more bellicose notes, in a speech President Ahmadinejad also acknowledged the havoc that sanctions and the looming oil embargo are wreaking on Iran’s economy and currency. [NYT]

• Though he resigned as top Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross—long seen as the most pro-Israel voice in the White House—retained his security clearance and still advises the president from time to time. [Haaretz]

• The West’s favorites from both sides, President Peres and Prime Minister Fayyad, met at Davos. [IMEMC News]

• Gal Beckerman catches the Times continuing to serve as a daily magazine of Jewish life and culture. [Forward]

• Eric Alterman sets the current debate over what is proper discourse about Israel in its historical context. Conclusion: The right has always tried to police what the left can say (though he is against “Israel-firster”). [The Nation]

• Jennifer Rubin has a smart post on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s successful playing of Israeli politics and President Obama’s unsuccessful attempt to derail Bibi’s plans. [WP Right Turn]

• Rep. Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, will be made an honest man of by his longtime partner. [JTA]

• Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on Welcome Back Kotter, died at 60. [Newark Star-Ledger]

• Senior editor Matthew Fishbane discusses his article on the imperiled Jews of Venezuela.

But I wanted to know more, including whether Lady Grantham’s mother, too, was Jewish (and therefore whether her three daughters with Lord Grantham—and any children they might have—are). I wasn’t going to let her being a fictional character stop me. I emailed Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis professor, author of Nextbook Press’s forthcoming When General Grant Expelled The Jews, and co-author of a 1989 book called, yes, The Jews of Cincinnati.

First, Sarna explained, even if Isidore Levinson isn’t real, he’s based on reality. Start from the premise that Lady Grantham is probably in her 40s when the show’s first episode begins in April 1912 (you know the exact date because a certain event has occurred that morning). Meaning she was born in Cincinnati in the late 19th century. According to Sarna, one study pegged to 1860 reports, “The manufacture, distribution, and sales of men’s ready-made clothing and other apparel supplied at least a portion of the livelihood for well over one-half of Cincinnati’s Jews.” Sarna added, “Other Jews were in dry goods. Jews benefited enormously from the Civil War and by the 1870s numbers of them were wealthy. One need only look at Plum Street Temple (the former synagogue of Isaac M. Wise, built in 1867 and now a National Historic Shrine) to get a sense of the community’s wealth.”

So a wealthy Cincinnati-based Jewish dry-goods merchant makes sense. Would a theoretical Levinson have married a Jew? “Most of the Jews who were in their prime in the 1870s had arrived in Cincinnati as immigrants in the 1840s and ’50s,” Sarna continues. “Those Jews had overwhelmingly married Jews. Some of their children, of course, did not. The daughter of Charles Fleischmann (of dried yeast fame) married Christian R. Holmes and one of Rabbi Wise’s daughters also eloped with a non-Jew (but raised Jewish descendants). However, as late as World War I, the intermarriage rate was a paltry 4.5 percent.”

In conclusion? “‘Isidore Levinson’ would have been right at home in Cincinnati in the 1870s, his wife would have been Jewish, and perhaps his daughter was among those who married out—into faded English royalty.” Oh, hooray!

Earlier: The Jewish Character in ‘Downton Abbey’

Bill Mardo, Writer Who Pushed Baseball To Integrate, Dies at 88 [NYT]
Related: Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball [Oxford University Press]

As Robert Zaretsky has reported in Tablet Magazine, Le Pen fille has genuinely changed the party and has even leveraged its xenophobic, anti-Islamic platform to appeal to Jews. More than that: Her deputy, Louis Aliot, last month traveled to Israel in order to try to drum up support among Israeli residents enfranchised in France for the elections. (Israel may be even more consequential to the French parliament, the National Assembly: The brand-new eighth constituency—one of 11 overseas French constituencies—includes only eight countries, one of which is Israel, whose more than 70,000 eligible voters make up roughly half the entire constituency’s franchise.)

But the FN is still the FN. Marine Le Pen has been on the defensive because daddy was interviewed on television about a notorious 1987 interview in which he questioned the Shoah—and he responded by blaming CRIF, the Jewish community’s official spokesperson to the government, for distorting his words. Old soldiers never die.

French Far-Right Leader Making Gains in Run-Up to April Elections [Haaretz]
Related: Send The Marine [Tablet Magazine]
Earlier: French Right Panders to ‘The Western Island’

It seems like Meshaal is backing away from the Hamas leadership less out of exhaustion than out of ambition. Nathan Thrall, a Tablet Magazine contributing editor who is a Jerusalem-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, answered my questions by email earlier this week.

How credible are these reports?
Highly credible, as the announcements have come from Hamas itself. One doesn’t really “run” for election as politburo head; there are no campaigns. The leader of the politburo is elected by Hamas’ senior decision-making body, the Shura Council, which is itself comprised of elected Hamas leaders. Although there remains a significant possibility that he will be chosen by the Shura Council despite announcing his intention to step down, the announcement doesn’t seem to be a ploy by Meshaal to be begged to lead for another four years.

How voluntary is his retirement?
Hamas’ internal elections are quite secret, so the deeper we get into the mechanics of them the less reliable the information we’re discussing. That said, it appears that Meshaal’s decision was not entirely voluntary.

His ambitions seem larger than to be the leader of Hamas. He speaks more and more as a leader of all Palestinians. Some suspected that he was pushing much harder than his colleagues for reconciliation with Fatah because the end-game for him was Hamas joining the Palestine Liberation Organization and his eventually becoming that organization’s chairman, which is to say, leader of the Palestinian people. These suspicions caused his behavior to come under extra scrutiny, as happened when the May 2011 signing ceremony for the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement was nearly derailed by a dispute over whether Meshaal would be given a seat at the podium beside Abbas. Some in Gaza saw the highly conciliatory speech he delivered in Cairo that day as pushing the boundaries of Hamas’ internal consensus. After meetings with Abbas in Cairo in November and December 2011, Meshaal stressed that Fatah and Hamas had agreed to a joint program of popular resistance, which many—especially Fatah spokesmen and leaders—interpreted to mean that Hamas was committing to a program of nonviolence. Though Hamas leaders on the outside, including Meshaal himself, were quick to clarify that they had not abandoned their right to armed resistance, they didn’t do so as loudly, clearly, or forcefully as they could have, and some in Gaza were unhappy with the resultant misperception that Hamas had radically changed its positions.

At the end of the day, Hamas is a popular movement, based in the West Bank and Gaza, with roots in local schools, mosques, welfare organizations, charities, and, since municipal and legislative elections in 2005 and 2006, government institutions. It is the inside leadership that must be more attentive to the base of Hamas supporters. The outside leadership gets a lot of publicity, but it is the inside leadership that has borne the heaviest burdens of the movement, from arrest to torture at the hands of the Palestinian Authority to the death of family members through assassination attempts by Israel. As one member of the inside leadership told me, “Hamas is not an office in Damascus.”

In discussing Meshaal’s decision, I would caution against using the word “retirement.” He is highly respected, experienced in diplomacy, charismatic, well-connected, and powerful within the movement. It seems likely he will continue to play a prominent role, whatever his official title.

It seems Meshaal’s decision would be connected to Hamas’ abandoning of Damascus in the midst of the Syrian civil war. Is Hamas’ next leader going to be more or less committed to staying in Damascus? If they leave, do they go to Cairo? Doha? Amman?
With the exception of a small group among the outside leadership, Hamas has all but left Damascus already. If Hamas’ outside leadership had been offered an alternative home in a state bordering the West Bank or Gaza—an alternative home in which they were permitted to conduct the business of the movement unobstructed—it’s quite likely they would have relocated by now. That said, unlike Hezbollah, Hamas has managed to avoid supporting the Syrian regime while continuing to express its gratitude for the years of support Assad had offered. Having avoided the mistakes of Hezbollah and other groups, Hamas may be able to stay in Damascus should Assad be replaced.

There is talk that Hamas, much like its cousins the Muslim Brotherhood, is genuinely reforming. Do you buy it? How does the Meshaal news affect your calculation? Does this make reconciliation with Fatah more or less likely?
There’s no doubt that Hamas has undergone significant changes in the last several years. In 2006, they participated in elections for a body many of its members deemed illegitimate because it was the product of the Oslo Accords. In 2007, they agreed with Fatah to form a national unity government that would respect the past agreements signed by the PLO, which include, of course, the recognition of Israel. The platform of that unity government affirmed the PLO chairman’s right to negotiate a final agreement with Israel and to bring such an agreement back to a referendum whose outcome Hamas has said it would respect. In Gaza, Hamas is arresting and prosecuting rocket launchers, albeit less completely than Israel would like. In Cairo in May 2011, Meshaal said that Abbas could take a year to continue pursuing negotiations with Israel. Today Hamas sits in a committee affiliated with the PLO while that organization negotiates with Israel. Hamas speaks loudly, albeit not exclusively, of a state on 1967 borders, though it should be noted that the difference here is one of emphasis, as Hamas has repeated this position many times since it was first uttered in the 1990s by Sheikh Yassin. And in fall 2011, Meshaal stressed his commitment to engage with Fatah on a joint strategy of so-called popular resistance.

These developments notwithstanding, Hamas leaders also say that though they are willing to engage for a defined period in popular resistance with Fatah, and though they are willing to embrace the creation of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, and though they were willing to form a government whose platform respected the past agreements of the PLO, including its recognition of Israel, they still retain, as members of a people under military occupation, a right to armed resistance; they still hold a long-term goal of liberating not just the territory Israel occupied in 1967 but also the remaining 78 percent of historic Palestine; and they still refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel. It should be noted that Fatah too insists on its right to armed resistance.

By all accounts, Hamas makes its decisions collectively, so even if Meshaal had been pushing harder for reconciliation, he cannot make decisions of enormous consequence to the movement without the consent of the Shura council. His successor will be similarly constrained. If the successor is Musa Abu Marzouk, I don’t expect to see changes with respect to reconciliation; Abu Marzouk had been the primary negotiator for Hamas for quite some time. If the successor is from the Gaza leadership, I imagine reconciliation could become more difficult.

Who is his likely successor?
The two names most frequently discussed are Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza-based Palestinian prime minister, and Marzouk, the deputy head of the politburo, who was an early follower of Hamas’ founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, created the politburo, and headed it from its inception until his arrest in the United States in 1995. The former is a skilled orator and fair mediator, is popular among female voters, and would be Hamas’ most viable candidate in a presidential election. The latter hails from Rafah [in Gaza], is respected by the Gaza leadership, and has a reputation for being one of Hamas’ leading strategists.

(Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Hamas Says That Its Political Leader Does Not Plan To Seek Re-election [NYT]
‘Mashaal Planning to Visit Gaza With Abbas’ [JPost]
Hamas Leader To Make Historic Visit to Jordan [AP/Haaretz]
Earlier: Hamas Smartly Departing From Damascus