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Daybreak: Dubai Murder Mystery

Plus new U.S. Syria envoy also killed Jesse James, and more

by
Marc Tracy
February 17, 2010

• The plot thickens: several of the Dubai police’s suspects in the murder of Hamas’s main weapons procurer are Israelis who appear to have been framed, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not. [LAT]
• President Obama formally named the first U.S. Ambassador to Syria in five years; Robert Ford, a career diplomat currently posted to Baghdad, faces Senate confirmation now. [Ynet]
• Meanwhile, four of the most prominent U.S. diplomats (including Secretary of State Clinton) are going on various Middle East grand tours (think recent college grads, only important) to drum up a united front against Iran. [NYT]
• The Palestinian Authority agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to the widow of an Al Aqsa Brigades attack in Israel in 2002 who was suing. It’s an unusual sort of settlement, though U.S. diplomats hope it’s the beginning of a new policy. [Politico]
• The old Muslim cemetary on which the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s planned Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem is, controversially, to be built, was intended in 1945 by Palestinian leaders as the site of a shopping mall. [JPost]

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