Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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Featured Stories With Obama mostly silent on Gaza, Dems move to fill void U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman, right, with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Sderot on a solidarity trip on Jan. 4, 2009, says he would be "upset and surprised" if President-elect Barack Obama "wasn't maintaining silence" on the Gaza situation. (Spencer Tucker / Office of the Mayor) Congress members speaking up as the president-elect says little about Israel's retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip, opening the door to criticism from some sectors of the pro-Israel community. Read more » Gaza fighting resumes after 'humanitarian pause' Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen resumed in the Gaza Strip after the expiration of a three-hour truce to allow in humanitarian aid, residents said. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that the Jewish state and the Palestinian Authority had accepted a truce plan. Read more » How's the mood in Israel? Depends where you live Just as in the summer of 2006, when the northern part of the country huddled in bomb shelters during the Second Lebanon War and the rest of the country carried on with its business, a new war has come that affects Israelis -- at least in part -- according to geography. Read more » Denial of bail to Rubashkin fueling legal controversy Two organizations are protesting efforts by U.S. prosecutors to deny bail to a plant manager at Agriprocessors on the grounds that he poses an added flight risk because as a Jew he could acquire Israeli citizenship. Read more » Editors' Picks Weighing in on Gaza attacks, Part V Ha'aretz says Israel should consider ending the Gaza incursion before it gets bogged down. Etgar Keret says the proportionality debate is an attempt to make the irrational rational. Thomas Friedman sees Gaza as ground zero for several larger Mideast conflicts. And more commentary from around the Web. A photographer in Gaza Slate runs a series of photos and an essay from photographer Scout Tufankjian, who is on the ground in Gaza. (Warning: graphic images) One army, two faces The New York Times takes note of the very different faces of the Israeli army portrayed on the English and Hebrew versions of its Web site. Hentoff signs off Veteran columnist Nat Hentoff says goodbye to the Village Voice after more than a half century. Breaking News Barack Obama said he will have "plenty to say" on the Gaza crisis in two weeks and will "hit the ground running" on brokering Middle East peace. Several hundred people demonstrated for Israel in New York City. Britain has seen a sharp rise in attacks on Jews since the start of Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Israel and the Palestinian Authority have accepted a truce plan for Gaza, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced. One of three Arab countries that maintain full diplomatic relations with Israel recalled its ambassador. Dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian reports. Anti-Semitic incidents in Belgium have surged in the wake of Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip. The Orthodox Union is convening leaders from Orthodox Jewish day schools and yeshivas to address the economic crisis and its effect on the day school system. A warning that Jews should be vigilant about attacks in New York on Jan. 7 is a hoax, the New York Police Department said. Norm Coleman said he will challenge Al Franken's U.S. Senate victory in court. A South African-born Jewish soldier serving in the Australian army was killed in Afghanistan. The Catholic priest who vandalized a memorial to slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in New Zealand has rejected calls for a “full and unqualified apology.” Some 50 previously unseen drawings and paintings by Marc Chagall will be auctioned. Nearly two dozen Jewish members of Congress celebrated the swearing-in of the 111th Congress. A Washington Post reporter is leaving the newspaper to join the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. A Ukrainian ombudsman has accused Israel of violating international law. Two suspects accused of helping to bomb an ancient Tunisian synagogue claimed they were innocent on the first day of their trial in Paris. An Israeli spokesman said media coverage of the Gaza operation has been "relatively fair." President Bush stacked his final selection of appointees to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council with senior Jewish members of his administration.