During yesterday’s session of the UN Security Council, the US accused Iran of violating a UN arms embargo by secretly sending weapons to Hizbullah via Syria in a ship seized by Israel.
Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari responded by accusing Israel of committing “an act of piracy on the high seas,” and dismissed the charges as “the usual outrageous concoction of lies.”
The same day, President Shimon Peres urged Syrian President Assad to engage in “direct and immediate negotiations, without mediators, without conditions, without postponements.”
I dunno. It’s almost like Peres is from another planet.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?
5:50PM: Photo of the day:
A Palestinian holds up a banner depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a rally marking the anniversary of Arafat’s death in the West Bank city of Ramallah November 11, 2009. The Fatah movement of Abbas accused Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers of detaining dozens of its members on Tuesday to stop them marking the 5th anniversary of the death of Arafat. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman (WEST BANK POLITICS ANNIVERSARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
Is it just me, or does it look like Arafat was wearing a condom on his head?
5:22PM: PA President Mahmoud Abbas is celebrating the fact his people have been engaged in terrorism for longer than anyone else.
“The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership will not lose hope and won’t allow despair to enter into our souls,” he said. “Our revolution is the most difficult and the longest revolution in history, and is perhaps the last revolution in the world.”
1:58PM: You remember that media blackout after yesterday’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting? Seems as though it may have been due to Washington disappointment with Bibi.
The White House expressed disappointment in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, with officials saying that they had hoped that the prime minister would present a concrete plan to scale back Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington on Monday, Netanyahu urged the Palestinians to resume peace talks with Israel, but failed to offer any new commitment regarding the settlements, which the Palestinians have demanded be halted as a precondition for talks, nor did he present any new terms for the talks.
“We had an idea that he might bring something out to push the process forward,” one U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal. “But he’s kept it in his pocket.”
There’s an obvious (Bill) Clinton joke here, but I am going to resist temptation. [add additional obvious Bill Clinton joke here]
6:15AM: Former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and three- time Defence Minister, Prof. Moshe Arens, speaking on the topic of the War on Terror and the Goldstone Report.
