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Sundown: Obama Honoree Under Fire

Plus, Hamas shows two faces

by
Marc Tracy
July 31, 2009

• Some, including President George W. Bush’s Jewish Liason, are upset that President Obama is giving Mary Robinson a Presidential Medal of Freedom. A one-time president of Ireland, Robinson has been criticized for permitting the 2001 anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa to be dominated by anti-Semitism. [JTA]
• Hamas’s leader said his group would sit down to negotiations with Israel pending a settlement freeze and the lifting of the Gaza blockade, and that a state based on the 1967 Green Line could be on the table. [Wall Street Journal]
• However, Hamas also threatened to boycott talks with Fatah unless the rival Palestinian faction releases prisoners currently being held in the West Bank. [Haaretz]
• Orthodox rabbinate-certified “kosher” cellphones—which cannot access the Internet, so that children are not privy to inappropriate material—are all the rage in Britain, with even non-Jewish parents wanting them. [Vos Iz Neias]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.