• While Defense Secretary Robert Gates talked up the need for more sanctions, Iran clarified its intentions, announcing that it will build 10 new nuclear plants. [LAT]
• Prime Minister Netanyahu directly asked E.U. ambassadors to move for further sanctions. [Ynet]
• And in case you weren’t sure: yes, enriching more uranium, even for ostensibly peaceful purposes, is likely to bring Iran ever closer to a weapon. [WP]
• Palestinian leadership is waiting for the United States to set exact terms for indirect peace negotiations before it fully agrees to them; they have said they are tentatively a go. [Haaretz]
• Nearly a dozen folks were arrested for interrupting Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at the University of California, Irvine, with shouts about alleged Israeli human rights violations. [JPost]
• Rabbi Bernard Lander, who founded religiously oriented Touro College, died at 94. [Arutz Sheva]

• Iran’s foreign minister said: “Israel is a crazy nation run by crazy people.” [Haaretz]
• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), who is very popular with the Tea Party set, told the Republican Jewish Coalition that the Bible establishes the United States itself would cease to exist if it stopped supporting Israel. [Minnesota Independent/Vos Iz Neias?]
• Right-wing Israeli extremists chanted “Hitler was right!” at a pro-settlements protest. [Forecast Highs]
• Infidel, a British movie due out (over there, at least) this spring, is about a devout Muslim man in Britain who finds out that he’s actually biologically Jewish. Looks really funny. Watch the trailer. [The Guardian]
• Democrat Scott Lee Cohen quit his race for Illinois lieutenant governor following revelations about an ex-girlfriend. He made his sad announcement at a Chicago bar during halftime last night. [Chicago Tribune] Which reminds us …
• Who Dat?! The Scroll congratulates the people of New Orleans and Saints Nation. And it advises Peyton Manning to insist that, as a condition of his new contract, the Indianapolis Colts fire Jim Caldwell, who contributed one of the worst coaching performances in Super Bowl history.

Last Friday afternoon, we worried that high tensions between Israel and Syria—most immediately prompted by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s threats to Syrian leader Bashar Assad—could lead to violence. Well, fortunately, they haven’t so far, and hot tempers have appeared to cool over the weekend. Which can allow us now to focus on the broader question of Israeli-Syrian hostility.

That there is currently no peace is partly a function of Israel’s unwillingness to give up the Golan Heights. But, really, blame for the enmity can probably be primarily laid at the feet of Syrian intransigence. Problem is (as I mentioned last Friday), that intransigence toward Israel has not stopped its newly important neighbor Turkey from seeking closer ties. It has not even prevented the United States from attempting to cozy up to Syria—America, which hopes to send its first ambassador to Damascus since 2005, would love a Syria that is less in Iran’s orbit and is cooperative in trying to maintain stability in neighboring Iraq as U.S. military forces withdraw.

A Haaretz correspondent notes, “Syria is a key country along a new axis being formed in the Middle East, which includes Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The backbone of this axis is economic, security, and diplomatic cooperation that would replace the old axis of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.” A smart Israeli leader would view the region in a more classically realist way, the correspondent adds, and work extra hard to achieve peace with Syria:

Israel, which is used to examining the region through a lens that counts Hezbollah’s missiles and Hamas’ explosive barrels sent to sea, and which considers the prisoner numbers in the Gilad Shalit deal the crux of the security threat, is blind to the region’s strategic developments. The expression “we want peace,” which is void of substance, cannot even begin to express the folly and shortsightedness of Israel, which is shrugging its shoulders at a chance to reach peace with Syria, if for no other reason than to prevent a damaging blow from this new axis.

To this end, we need a statesman, not a comedian. The leader who can make Israelis understand that peace with Syria does not mean eating humus in Damascus but is an existential interest, no less important than blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Peace With Syria As Vital As Stopping Iran’s Bomb [Haaretz]

Earlier: Israel and Syria In Crisis

The Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman has looked over test scores and class participation, and decided to fail President Barack Obama for his handling of the Middle East in his first year in office: “Since there are no prospects of talks on the horizon, and in many ways what their efforts wrought was a wasted year without any negotiations, I believe the administration deserves an ‘F’ for failure to deliver on results,” Foxman said. Foxman in particular faulted Obama for raising expectations so high (something Obama himself has said he regrets doing) and for emphasizing Israel’s settlement policy too much. On the other hand, Foxman did give the president an ‘A’ for effort. (That’s not our punch-line. He really said he did.)

ADL Gives Obama An ‘F’ For Failing to Deliver in ME [JPost]

Roughly 20 percent of Slate’s list of the top 60 donors in 2009 are Jews (including the top giver, Pittsburgh financiers Stanley F. and Fiona B. Druckenmiller). Folks you may have heard of include Michael Bloomberg (4); George Soros (6); Eli and Edythe Broad (7); and David Rubinstein (52). The Fundermentalist, JTA’s philanthropy blog, notes that several names are ostentatiously absent, including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Sheldon Adelson.

Jewish-themed recipients of some of the top donors’ largesse included National Jewish Health, the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, and the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation. Maybe, like the rest of the country, Jews should start moving en masse to the Sun Belt?

Also, the New York Times reports today on how the Broads stand astride the Los Angeles arts scene like a colossus. Which recalls that line from Annie Hall, that the difference between L.A. and yogurt is that yogurt has active culture. But still, good for them! May their write-offs be happy ones.

Who Are The Jews Among the Slate 60 List of Top Givers [The Fundermentalist]
Slate 60: Donor Bios [Slate]

Related: Iron Checkbook Shapes Cultural Los Angeles [NYT]

Not afraid to be service-y, a Chinese newspaper wants to know: what can its country learn from the amazing success the American Jewish community had had lobbying the U.S. government on its issues? Jack Rosen, the head of the American Jewish Congress, reveals the trick of the trade: lobby on positions that the majority of Americans agree with anyway. Which might be a tall order for China, even if, according to Rosen, the Jews manage it just fine.

Rosen argues:

If you go back 40 years, the Jewish lobby was lobbying on behalf of individual rights and civil rights. And they did it for African Americans, they did it for Latin Americans, and they did it for Chinese. …

Then there is the issue of Israel. Why are Jewish groups so successful in lobbying for Israel? Again the American public is very supportive of the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in the Middle East that gives equal rights and freedom to everyone. Women have equal rights in Israel.

So it’s easy to lobby for Israel, because 90 percent of Americans believe in what you are lobbying for.

One other thing that, according to Rosen, helps the Jewish lobby is, well, all the Jews in government: “Jewish people represent two percent of the U.S. population, but in some parts of the government we are 10 percent of the leadership. For instance, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is Jewish,” he said. Which is indisputably true, of course, but it is a little odd to see one of its main beneficiaries so casually admitting this fact, given that it is not infrequently used to deride his lobby’s efforts. The unembarassment is refreshing, as is the honesty and candor. He should say it in an American paper sometime.

Remember U.S. Values When Lobbying There [Global Times]

Today in Tablet Magazine, Marjorie Ingall profiles (in slideshow form!) Deb Malkin, whose Brooklyn boutique caters to women size 12 and up. Liel Leibovitz compares and contrasts two Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film: Ajami, from Israel, and The White Ribbon, from Germany. Josh Lambert’s weekly round-up of notable forthcoming books includes the hardboiled cop story Boca Mournings. Whenever The Scroll is in Boca, it tries to sleep in at least until the afternoons.

Earlier reports have been confirmed: the son of Ethan Bronner, who is the New York Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, has enlisted in the Israeli military. Times editor Bill Keller told the paper’s ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, that this was the case, and insisted there were no plans to remove Bronner from his post: “Ethan has proved himself to be the most scrupulous of reporters,” Keller said. “We have the utmost confidence that his work will continue to meet the highest standards.” For his part, Bronner, who has covered the area for almost three decades, said: “I wish to be judged by my work, not by my biography. … Either you are the kind of person whose intellectual independence and journalistic integrity can be trusted to do the work we do at the Times, or you are not.”

For the record, various folks and groups have accused Bronner of being biased about the Mideast in every imaginable way; it is those who accuse him of being biased in Israel’s favor who are in dudgeon over this. In my opinion, it is literally impossible to have his job and not face those criticisms. (Also, for the record, Keller says he would be inclined to keep Bronner in his post even if his son is deployed in combat.)

Should Bronner keep his job? The question is not inside baseball: there are few if any individuals who are more influential when it comes to shaping mainstream U.S. perception of the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian situation than the lead Times reporter. Let’s grant that Bronner’s actual journalism has been, under hypothetical totally objective standards, completely without bias and beyond reproach. Hoyt calls Bronner an “excellent reporter”; I agree. We can also grant that, in an ideal world, Bronner’s “work” and not his “biography” would be the sole standard by which he is judged.

Hoyt and I agree that Bronner has been fair-minded. But Hoyt and I also agree with Alex Jones, a Pulitzer-winning Harvard press expert. He told Hoyt: “The appearance of a conflict of interest is often as important or more important than a real conflict of interest. I would reassign him.” Such a move, frankly, is unfair to Bronner, “but the newspaper has to come first,” he added.

Assuming another of the Times’s excellent reporters is subbed in for Bronner, it’s difficult to see who would be harmed by Bronner’s move other than Bronner, who would not be the first person to have his career or personal life compromised in some manner by the completely legitimate behavior of a loved one. This is the price of doing business. Surely someone who has covered the Middle East for a quarter-century has learned that the world is not always a fair place.

Too Close to Home [NYT]

Earlier: Report: NYT J’lem Chief Has Son in IDF

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly ordered further enrichment of uranium, ostensibly for a medical-research reactor. The move immediately heightened tensions over the country’s nuclear program. [WSJ]
• President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to the U.S. model of indirect talks, whereby envoy George Mitchell will present an offer to the Israelis and the Palestinians and then shuttle between articulating the other’s position. [Haaretz]
• The New Israel Fund, a U.S. charity that funds several Palestinian human rights groups, has become a massive political football in Israel, with the right accusing it of enabling the Goldstone Report. [LAT]
• The new vice president of Costa Rica, Luis Lieberman, is Jewish. His grandfather was the Central American country’s first mohel; presumably campaign slogans about cutting out unnecessary spending all but wrote themselves. [Arutz Sheva]
• Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who somehow still chairs the Homeland Security Committee, called on the international community to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Failing that, he added, there would be military action. [Haaretz]
• Harry Schwarz, who came to South Africa to escape the Nazis and became a major anti-apartheid leader there, died at 86. At various points, he served as Nelson Mandela’s defense lawyer; an important opposition member of parliament; and the ambassador to the United States. [JTA]

• Zachary Quinto—he played Spock in the Star Trek movie—has signed on to play the lead in (get this) Steven Spielberg’s George Gershwin biopic. [Paste]

•The original 1941 The Wolf Man (the remake with Benicio del Toro comes out in a week) was written to manifest how German Jewish screenwriter Robert Siodmak felt others perceived him. [LAT]

• A profile, in op-ed form, of Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League. [IHT]

• Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged and publicly worried about the record number of anti-Semitic incidents Great Britain experienced in 2009. [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]

• New Voices, the national Jewish student magazine, has canceled its print edition. [Josh Nathan-Kazis]

• Moshiach Times Band is the religious Jews’ answer to the Jonas Brothers. Below, they play “One Mitzvah at a Time.” God help us. [Heeb]