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Daily Briefing

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 Donate Now | Share This Email

FEATURED STORY What are the options to derail Palestinian statehood at the U.N.? The United States is working on several strategies to derail the Palestinian plan to obtain recognition of statehood at the United Nations. Read more » EDITORS' PICKS Our Jerusalem The Jewish people should not be asked to cede control over Jerusalem, writes the Orthodox Union's Nathan Diament in a JTA Op-Ed for Jerusalem Day. Two Jerusalems There are actually two Jerusalems: one rich and one poor, one of peace and one of conflict, one Jewish and one Arab, writes Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America in a JTA Op-Ed for Jerusalem Day. From kibbutz to Tea Party JTA's Ron Kampeas reads that possible Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann once volunteered on a kibbutz. Baghdad's pogrom: 70 years later Writing in Haaretz, historian Robert Wistrich remembers the Farhud, the 1941 Nazi-inspired pogrom in Baghdad, on its 70th anniversary. Seymour Hersh's Iran skepticism, Jeffrey Goldberg's Hersh skepticism The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh argues that the Iranian nuclear threat is being overstated, but The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg says that Hersh's thesis is undercut by a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report. Gray eminences call for peace push The New York Review of Books publishes a letter to President Obama from a bipartisan group of former senior public servants -- including former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former congressman Lee Hamilton and former senator David Boren -- criticizing Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and calling for a renewed U.S. peace push. Bob Dylan vs. Paul Simon Writing in the Forward, David Shasha compares and contrasts two great American Jewish singer-songwriters as they turn 70. BREAKING NEWS House Republicans introduced a bill reaffirming Bush administration principles on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. The lawyer for a man badly burned during an alleged arson attempt in a New York Chasidic village is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the incident as a hate crime. Iran's defense minister left Bolivia following complaints from Argentina over his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Jewish community center. Some 30,000 Israelis participated in the annual flag march through eastern Jerusalem in honor of Jerusalem Day. The U.S. State Department denied that the removal of one of its diplomats from Bahrain was due to threats. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began testifying on his own behalf at his trial on corruption charges. Police are investigating an attack on the entrance to the historic synagogue in the Croatian city of Split, on the Adriatic coast. For the third time since 2007, Britain's largest academic union has voted to adopt an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. A pioneer of open source computer programming canceled three lectures at Israeli universities because of pressure from the Palestinian Authority. Spray-painted swastikas and a death threat written in German were found at an Italian restaurant in Orangeburg, N.Y. A member of a southern Austrian village's municipal council has stepped down following an uproar over his Nazi-inspired tattoo.