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Daybreak: Israel Wants In the OECD Club

Plus Merkel the pro-Israel maverick, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
January 20, 2010

• Israel’s controversial weapons trade and border disputes are threatening its membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the global club for large, developed economies. [NYT]
• An OECD report shows that Israel, if admitted, would be its poorest member. Its Arab and ultra-Orthodox populations pull the numbers down. [Haaretz]
• Chancellor Angela Merkel has made waves in the E.U. and Germany for her unusually staunch pro-Israel stances. [NYT]
• President Abbas’s current idea is to get Israel to impose an East Jerusalem construction freeze as short as three months before talks resume. But Prime Minister Netanyahu is unlikely to go along. [JPost]
• The FBI arrested four Israeli businessmen, along with 18 others, in connection with the alleged bribery of an African defense minister over a multimillion-dollar defense contract. [Haaretz]
• Ernst Cramer died at 96. He escaped Buchenwald, joined the U.S. Army, and fought the Nazis; in his later life, he was a journalist known for standing up for Israel. [JTA]

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