Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Monday, October 3, 2011 l

FEATURED STORY How the GOP has learned to love Israel unconditionally The GOP presidential front-runners have distanced themselves from past Republican administrations' policies of pressuring Israel on settlements and peacemaking.Read more » EDITORS' PICKS Irvine verdict sends a message The misdemeanor convictions of 10 California college students for disrupting a speech by Israel's ambassador is leading some to predict changes in the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out on campus, Dan Klein reports for JTA. Taking Israelis in Herzl's European footsteps Four-dozen Israelis took a trip that retraced the footsteps of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, through Europe. JTA's Alex Weisler reports from Budapest. BREAKING NEWS California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that prevents the state's municipalities from banning male circumcision. Arab Israelis demonstrated after a mosque in northern Israel was destroyed in a fire suspected of being set by Jewish extremists. Egypt reportedly will release Ilan Grapel, the dual U.S.-Israeli citizen arrested in Egypt on spying charges. President Obama was considering clemency for Jonathan Pollard until Vice President Joseph Biden prevented it, The New York Times reported. Leaders of Cuba's Jewish community met with jailed American contractor Alan Gross on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. An Israeli yeshiva student drowned on a pilgrimage to the grave of a Chasidic rabbi in the central Ukrainian city of Uman. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned Israel about becoming more isolated in the Middle East than it is now. Israel has accepted the Mideast Quartet's proposal to renew peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The tent cities remaining in Tel Aviv from this summer's social justice protests were evacuated. Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk can be listed as "without religion" in the country's population registry, as he requested, a Tel Aviv court ruled. Members of Canada's federal Liberal Party are crying foul after lawmakers from the governing Conservatives wrested control of a pro-Israel friendship group. Ukraine marked the 70th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar, one of the deadliest of the Holocaust. Pope Benedict XVI sent out a High Holidays message auguring peace, justice and friendship in the Jewish New Year.