Daybreak: Shalit Deal Held Up
Plus the pros and cons of trying Demjanjuk, and more in the news
December 04, 2009
• Disputing reports that a deal over captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has been struck, a Hamas spokesperson said Israel refuses to release 15 specific prisoners upon whom Hamas has insisted. [Haaretz]
• A long article weighs the legitimate reasons for trying accused concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk against the 89-year-old’s apparently frail health. [LAT]
• Russia decisively kiboshed U.S. efforts to get it, the European Union, and the United Nations to join the United States in formally declaring support for Israel’s construction freeze. [Haaretz]
• Waldorf Astoria is building a luxury hotel/residence in Jerusalem’s Mamilla neighborhood, which has seen several other similarly expensive new developments of late. [NYT]
• As his two predecessors did repeatedly (and he already did once), President Obama postponed for six months the implementation of a 1995 U.S. law requiring that the United States’s Israeli embassy be located in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. [JPost]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
