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Daybreak: Iran Lashes Out Like Wounded Dog

Plus Syria transition plan shockingly fails, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
July 02, 2012
President Ahmadinejad last month.(Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/GettyImages)
President Ahmadinejad last month.(Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/GettyImages)

• Yesterday, Iran had missile tests and pledged to wipe Israel “off the face of the earth” should it attack. Coincidentally (or not), the European Union oil embargo went into effect the same day. [Reuters]

• And inflation in Iran is rising at breakneck speed. [NYT]

• An international transition plan for Syria detailed Saturday, which would have seen a transitional government but did not specify how President Bashar Assad will depart, was seen as doomed only a day later. Surprising it took a day. [WSJ]

• The saga of Ulpana, a neighborhood in the Beit El settlement, will continue for several more months, with the Supreme Court now ruling that its houses—built on land, according to the court, privately owned by Palestinians—may be left until November (the deadline had been this month). [Haaretz]

• UNESCO added Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity (along with the accompanying Piligrimage Route) to its World Heritage List, which was seen as a political move as much in the wake of the U.N. body’s recognition of a Palestinian state last year. [NYT]

• Hamas leader Khaled Meshal again visited and was received warmly by Jordan’s King Abdullah. [Haaretz]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.