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Sundown: Milk, Honey, and Black Gold

Striking it rich, preparing for battle, and objecting to an award for Mary Robinson

by
Hadara Graubart
August 04, 2009
Mary Robinson at the John Jay Justice Awards in New York in April.(Brad Barket/Getty Images)
Mary Robinson at the John Jay Justice Awards in New York in April.(Brad Barket/Getty Images)

• Christians and Jews alike have found a reason to love the Hebrew Bible—not just as a record of God’s laws, but as a treasure map detailing where to drill for oil in Israel. [Examiner]
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen makes an over-simplified, by-the-books argument against the necessity of “hate crime” laws, but ends with a provocative idea on the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting: “To suggest that the effects of this attack were felt only by the Jewish or the black communities … ghettoizes both its real and purported victims. It’s a consequence that von Brunn himself might applaud.” [WPost]
• The Anti-Defamation League and some other Jewish groups are chagrined that President Obama has chosen to give a Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson; they blame the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights for allowing the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban to be dominated by anti-Israel voices. [ABC]
• Renovations have begun on the oldest synagogue in Beirut, with the approval of Hezbollah: “We respect the Jewish religion.… We have an issue with Israel’s occupation of land.” [LAT]
• On that note, Hezbollah is stockpiling weapons in its capacity as “Iran’s insurance policy” against Israel. [London Times]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.