
• Today is March 14, and yesterday supporters of Lebanon’s March 14 movement rallied to supported outsed ex-prime minister Saad Hariri and to demand that Hezbollah give up its weapons. [AP/NYT]
• Alan Gross, the 61-year-old American contractor who was helping Cuba’s Jewish community and was accused of being a spy, was sentenced to 15 years in jail over the weekend. The United States condemned the punishment. [JTA]
• Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that if Israel didn’t quickly move to help establish a Palestinian state, it would face “a diplomatic tsunami.” Holy innapropriate metaphors, Batman! [Haaretz]
• The sides are gearing up in Egypt for next Saturday’s constitutional referendum. Hosni Mubarak’s old party and the Muslim Brotherhood support the proposed reforms; most of the other parties do not. [NYT]
• Foreign policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter argues that the U.S. should maneuver the Security Council into authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya—something which the Arab League endorsed over the weekend. [NYT]
• Tawfik Toubi, 88, the last surviving member of Israel’s first parliament, died. Somehow it’s fitting that he was also the founder of the Israeli Communist Party. [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]
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