Navigate to News section

Daybreak: Schalit Issue Broached Again

Plus ‘Free Pollard’ movement gains official steam, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
October 18, 2010
From a pro-Schalit rally in June.(Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)
From a pro-Schalit rally in June.(Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

• Israel has re-engaged the German mediator on the topic of freeing Gilad Schalit. [NYT]

• Talks have also initiated, at least among high-level Israelis, over how to free convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from the United States. [JPost]

• The Leviathan prospect, thought to be a major natural gas field off Israel’s northern coast, is about to be drilled. [WSJ]

• As it struggles for traction against the ruling, Islamist AKP, Turkey’s staunchly secularist opposition party revamped its platform, including calling for closer ties with Israel. [WSJ]

• Secretary of State Kissinger felt limited by Vietnam in how much support he could offer Israel during the Yom Kippur War, new documents show. [Haaretz]

• Novelist Belva Plain, famous for multigenerational epics about Jewish-Americans, died at 95. [NYT]

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