More in ‘Gaza’

• Prime Minister Netanyahu called Secretary of State Clinton to propose a series of “mutual confidence building” (“building”!) steps that Israel and the Palestinians could stage to “improve the atmosphere” and pave the way to talks. [NYT]
• U.S. envoy George Mitchell will head to the region after all, this Sunday. His trip last Tuesday had ...

• While describing the East Jerusalem construction announcement as “not helpful,” President Obama denied that U.S.-Israel relations are in crisis. [JPost]
• Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren makes a similar description and the same denial in this op-ed. But he also stands by Israeli building in East Jerusalem. [NYT]
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now says he won’t ...

“Before today began, Hamas had called on Palestinians to make it a “day of rage” in response to the Israeli construction announcement. Many appear to have obliged. Dozens of Palestinians, and over a dozen Israeli policemen, have been injured in clashes. “Jerusalem is Islamic and, we act in accordance with that religious motivation,” said Hamas’s ...

In a pretty epic case of burying the lede (though it is in the headline), Haaretz published a profile of Sarah Corrie Simpson, the sister of Rachel Corrie, while waiting until the penultimate paragraph to reveal the real scoop: that (according to Simpson) an unnamed U.S. government official encouraged the Corrie family to sue the ...

• Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon argued that, whether or not the East Jerusalem announcement’s timing was unfortunate, Israeli development there is legitimate: “Jerusalem has always been out of the question.” Ladies and gentlemen, your second-ranking Israeli diplomat! [Haaretz]
• One day after endorsing the Goldstone Report, the E.U. parliament demanded that Hamas immediately release Gilad ...

A brouhaha has been brewing (brouhaha-ing?) over remarks that Martin Kramer—a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy currently serving out a visitor-ship at Harvard, as well as the president-designate of the forthcoming Shalem College in Israel—made at the Herzliya Conference in late February (covered for Tablet Magazine by Judith Miller).
Kramer spent ...

• The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly passed a resolution condemning Turkey’s Armenian “genocide,” a controversial, volatile (and historically accurate) step on which most pro-Israel groups are lukewarm. [NYT]
• Polish anti-abortion activists are using Hitler’s image on billboards, reminding folks that the Nazis legalized abortion in conquered Poland. [Haaretz]
• In an op-ed, Ireland’s foreign ...

• Saying he’s “almost certain” the Mossad was behind the assassination of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Dubai police chief is seeking arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan. More on this story later in the day. [Reuters/Laura Rozen]
• The top U.N. official for humanitarian relief condemned the Gaza blockade, ...

• An Israeli delegation showed Chinese officials extensive intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. China is the final veto-possessing holdout when it comes to further Security Council sanctions. [Haaretz]
• Israel’s plans to landmark two Biblical sites in the West Bank led to further skirmishes, as well as the Israeli police entering al-Aqsa mosque in the ...

• Laura Rozen notes a spurt in high-level diplomatic and defense meetings between the United States and Israel. Most notably, Vice President Biden heads there next month. [Laura Rozen]
• Could recent scandals in the ultra-Orthodox community—Tropper, Balkany, Dwek, et al—lead to a waning of the bloc’s political influence? [The Jewish Week]
• Dan Senor, one of ...