More in ‘IDF’

• Despite everything, Israel expects the proximity talks will in fact launch, and soon. [JPost]
• The IDF indicted two soldiers in military court for allegedly getting a Palestinian boy to open a suspected booby-trapped package during last year’s Gaza conflict. [LAT]
• To head off buzzed-about rioting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered a 48-hour full closure ...

The New York Observer may have found yet further evidence—if distantly circumstantial—of Mossad involvement in the January 19 assassination of Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. (To learn everything you need to know about the whole thing, click here.)
The interesting detail has to do with a New York City-based company called Payoneer, whose prepaid ...

• Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system seems wonderful in theory, but it’s not perfect yet still costly, and is therefore stirring controversy. [LAT]
• Dubai has 15 new suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all of whom carried European or—in a new twist—Australian passports. The Scroll will have a full update later today. [Ynet]
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• The Israeli Air Force revealed new pilotless drones (the size of Boeing 737s) that have a long enough range to be operational against, say, Iran. [NYT]
• The French and Spanish foreign ministers are the most prominent supporters of an initiative that would see the European Union recognize a Palestinian state within 18 months. Israel ...

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 ...

• Israeli soldiers are about to get some new gear: socks guaranteed not to stink for two weeks straight. No word on whether the laundry-impaired civilian will have access to the miracle footwear. [AFP]
• Public schools in Virginia have removed the “definitive edition” of Anne Frank’s diary from shelves, citing “the sexual nature of the ...

The Emails of Zion is a collection of messages from Jewish parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and others who are eager—often way too eager—to inform their children about issues of pressing concern to the Jewish community. Some of these emails may sound crazy, paranoid, ethnocentric, and/or racist, while others are disturbingly sane. These are the voices ...

• On a radio show, former congressman Harold Ford, Jr., alleged he was the victim of a “schmear campaign” launched by New York political insiders who don’t want him to run for the U.S. Senate. He then corrected himself: “I’m a little country, I apologize. It’s s-m-e-a-r.” If anything, the slip should allay fears that ...

The Israel Defense Force’s heroic efforts in Haiti have been (justly) well-documented. A less-known part of the story is that of two Jews, who have made their homes in Haiti for years, who have made so much of these heroics possible.
Reuven Shalom Bigio, the son of a prominent Syrian Jewish businessman, is an honorary Israeli ...

CNN reports that the Israel Defense Force’s emergency medical facility in Haiti is far and away the most capable and state-of-the-art there right now. (As of Monday, according to the report, not even the United States had established such a facility.) Located in a Port-au-Prince soccer field, the hospital has operating rooms, a radiology department, ...